Our eyes were on the sparrows last weekend.
The occasion was the Atlanta Audubon Society’s annual Sparrow Identification Workshop in and around Brunswick in coastal Glynn County. Our aim was to become more adept at identifying Georgia’s various sparrow species and to appreciate their subtle beauty and behavior.
More than 20 sparrow species are native to Georgia (not including the house sparrow, a species introduced from Europe and only distantly related to North American species).
Some of our natives live year-round in Georgia, such as song, field and chipping sparrows. Others, such as white crowned, white throated, fox and swamp sparrows, are winter residents only. Some, such as saltmarsh, seaside and Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrows, live only along the coast, in and around salt marshes.
Telling them apart, however, can be a headache. Most folks — even many experienced birders — probably know sparrows only as those “little brown birds” with conical bills. From a distance, several sparrow species may look amazingly alike.
“We won’t identify every sparrow species we see, but we’ll try,” our co-leader, Tim Keyes, an ornithologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said during a classroom session to give us tips for identifying each species.
He noted, too, that the tendency of most sparrows to hide and forage in thick brush and tall grass and emerge only briefly into the open makes it hard to get a good look at them.
To flush the birds from their hiding places, he and his fellow co-leader, ornithologist Gene Keferl, brought along a 60-foot rope with weights attached in the middle. During our field sessions, they dragged the rope length-wise through the dense marsh grass of a salt marsh and through the tall weeds of an old field to get the sparrows to come out.
We kept our binoculars ready to catch at least a glimpse of them as they flew up.
Close-up views of sparrows reveal that they are not as dull as is commonly believed. Each species’ plumage, for instance, can be a distinct blend of shades, streakings and patches of brown, yellow, gray and white.
In the sky: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be full Wednesday night — the "Trading Moon," as the Cherokee people called it. Brightly shining Venus rises out of the east about three hours before dawn. Mars rises out of the east around 3 a.m. Jupiter rises out of the east just after midnight.
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