Zonotrichia leucophrys (white-crowned sparrow)

The white crowned sparrow is a common Emberizine sparrow that is found throughout all of North America. These birds nest in Northern Canada as well as the Rocky Mountain region. They winter in the southern US and Mexico. For those of us here in Minnesota we usually only see them in the sprint and fall when they migrate. I photographed this bird in Yellowstone. This is nesting territory and since there were quite a few singing in the open fields I am guessing it was time to find a mate and settle down.

White-crowned sparrow

 As summer is beginning to wind down it will not be long before it is September and we begin to see white-crowned sparrows moving through the area again, on their way south. Although there is a small population of white-crowned sparrows living in the western U.S that do not migrate, white crowned here in the middle of the continent breed up in northern Canada near the arctic circle. They winter in the southern two thirds of the U.S. and Mexico. So the only time that we usually see them is during the Spring or Fall when they are migrating. Like most passerines they migrate at night guided by the stars. They spend the day resting and feeding, often with mixed flocks of sparrows, so that they will have the energy to continue to their winter destination.

White-crowned Sparrow

I don't know about you but sparrows are right behind gulls when it comes distinguishing between the different species. There is a class on sparrow identification that is held in South Dakota each summer. Perhaps I will attend it one year so that I can improve my ID skills. Fortunately the white-crowned sparrow is one species that is not so hard.
Most white-crowned sparrows breed in northern and western Canada as well as Alaska. They winter in the lower two thirds of the US and into Mexico. This was by far the most common sparrow that we saw when we were in New Mexico last month. In Minnesota we usually only see them during migration. Often they will stop and forage on the ground for seeds and insects to help them as they continue their migration. They are often considered a sign of fall and when we see them up at Hawk Ridge in Duluth where I took these photos.

Prairie Wetlands Learning Center

On my way back home from the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds I decided to make a stop at the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center located near Fergus Falls, MN. I had the option to visit the center on one of the festival field trips but I choose Itasca and Tamarac instead because the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center was an easy stop on my way home.

The Prairie Wetlands Learning Center is the first residential environmental center operated by the U.S. fish and wildlife service. It began as a grass roots effort back in the 1970's to establish a public use facility focusing on prairies and wetlands. A local group calling themselves "The Friends of the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center," formed in 1989 and through private donations and grants they were able to open the center in 1994. The facility was expanded to include a dormitory and visitors center in 1998 and an education wing in 2008.

The Prairie Wetlands Learning Center is located on the Townsend Waterfowl Production Area, a 330 acre tract of land consisting of native and restored prairie, 28 wetlands and an oak savanna. There have been over 180 different species of birds that have been identified on the center grounds. With the abundance of prairie habitat it is no surprise that many different types of sparrows can be found there.

I have to confess that I have a difficult time identifying sparrows, right up there with gulls and darner dragonflies, so if I have misidentified any of these sparrows please let me know. I believe that the first sparrow, 2 pictures above, is a white-crowned sparrow, the one directly above is a clay colored sparrow and the one below is a song sparrow.

One of these days I am going to have to take the sparrow workshop that Doug Buri and Bob Janssen put on out in western South Dakota. I took their shorebird workshop back in 2008 but have not had the time to get out to take the sparrow workshop in October. Last year they identified 14 different species during the three day workshop. If you are interested in this workshop here is the address where you can find more information.

Besides sparrows there were other birds like this eastern bluebird. Bluebirds seem to be more common these days. That is just my unscientific observation.

Another cool bird that I was able to photograph were purple martins. I have seen purple martin gourds at several different locations but usually there have not been any purple martins. At this locations there seem to be a healthy population.

Besides the prairies the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center also has wetland areas. Around the wetlands I found quite a bit of bird life, such as Canada geese, mallards, American coot, as well as redwing and yellowheaded blackbirds.

While I was on my way back to the car everything went quiet. All of the small birds seemed to just disappear leaving me with just the Canada geese and mallards. A shadow crossed over head and I looked up to see a coopers hawk crossing the sky in search of prey. Since the geese were a little much for a coopers hawk it continued on its way.

Wordless Wednesday: White-throated and White-crowned Sparrow

Yellowstone Passerines

While we were on our Yellowstone trip we saw a lot of birds that we don't usually see around home but we did see some familiar birds also.
Chipping sparrows were fairly numerous around the park. The top picture was taken on the bank of the Madison River on a snowing Wednesday morning.
Earlier in the week we photographed a chipping sparrow in the same area only the weather was a bit better.

We also saw some white-crowned sparrows. This one was watching me from his perch on the Blacktail Deer Plateau. Although white-crowned sparrows do not usually spend a great deal of time around home they do pass through the state in the spring, on their way up to their Arctic breeding grounds, and in the fall, on their way back to the southern US and Mexico where they winter.Even though I have photographed white-crowned sparrows in Minnesota before this was the first white-crowned sparrow that I ever photographed on bison dung. EWWWWWWWW!
In Minnesota we also get red-breasted nuthatch like the one above, although the white-breasted nuthatch is much more common in Minnesota. I found this bird in the woods on the shore of the mostly frozen Lake Yellowstone.
We saw quite a few of these birds through out the park. At first I did not know what type of bird that it was. Although it did not look like any of the birds that I had seen around home it was in fact a bird that is very common in northern Minnesota in the summer and the southern part of the state in the winter.
I found out that this is a dark-eyed junco. Dark-eyed junco are a lot like red-tailed hawks, in that they have a number of variations that occur, depending on what part of the hemisphere that they live in. In Yellowstone the dark-eyed junco are of the pink-sided variety. In Minnesota we mostly see the slate-colored variety, which tend to be darker and have grey, slate, colored sides instead of pink like the ones above. There is also an Oregon variety, which looks like the slate-colored type except they have a darker head, and the white-winged variety, that look like the slate-colored type with white wing bars.