[Maine-birds] "Brewer's Sparrow" may be a dull Clay-colored Sparrow

Nathan Dubrow is to be congratulated on finding an unusual bird at his home in Bar Harbor. His better photo here (https://tinyurl.com/yx8t4oym) looked very promising as Brewer's Sparrow--a grayish bird with longer looking tail than similar Spizella, relatively plain face pattern and apparent white eyering. I went up the same day, saw the bird, and felt it was a Brewer's Sparrow at the time. At the time, I wondered about the apparently thick black streaks in the crown. By the next day, questions were raised by Jeremiah Trimble and Luke Seitz, who asked simply what are the characters that separate this from Clay-colored Sparrow? In the West, migrant Brewer's are frequently identified as dull Clay-colored Sparrows, and the two species can be confused. It is more unusual, but some dull Clay-colored Sparrows can appear like the bird in Bar Harbor.

After being content with this as a Brewer's Sparrow, it seems this bird is more likely a dull Clay-colored Sparrow. Everyone who has seen the bird is encouraged to look at the bird critically and decide for themselves, but I am now admitting that I was likely wrong. One feature that others have not yet mentioned to me as suggesting Clay-colored Sparrow is the thickness of the black crown streaks and the richer brown background to those streaks in the lateral crown stripes (see my last photo in list here (https://ebird.org/checklist/S76389791). The black streaks are too broad and too few in the lateral crown stripes to fit Brewer's, even a Timberline Sparrow (a subspecies of Brewer's that does differ in having broader black crown streaking). The crown pattern I see on the Bar Harbor bird is a lot like a Clay-colored Sparrow, except that the median crown stripe is far duller than expected for that species.

Points that others have suggested as wrong for Brewer's Sparrow are that the white malar streaks are too bright white and too contrasting (one can find Brewer's that look this way, however). The malars are the white stripes at the sides of the throat, and the Bar Harbor bird's malars do impart a more Clay-colored pattern. The face is perhaps too buff for Brewer's, the white eyering not strong enough (admittedly it is weaker and duller above the eye, like Clay-colored), and the bird overall a bit more warm-colored than Brewer's (again Brewer's Sparrows can be found that match all these features). Lastly, the gray band on the hindneck may be too contrasting for Brewer's, and the fine streaks remnants of juvenile plumage (or first-winter feathers that are juvenile-like). All these features are subjective and a matter of degree, but they are shown by the bird in question. The crown streaks may be the only measurable thing, and sway me to think a dull Clay-colored Sparrow with juvenile-like characters, as suggested by Jeremiah Trimble, seems a safer identification.

Louis Bevier
Fairfield

--
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/maine-birds/92439F3C-F116-4B96-BF66-6506206712BF%40colby.edu.