Bird: Clay-colored Sparrow

This July, I have been walking in fields near Glacier High School early in the morning before the sun gets too high. I park in the school parking lot and see and hear several killdeer, the young ones a bit clumsy as they scurry across the parking lots, the adults doing their noisy best to have me move on.

The adjacent fields are full of Salsify and Musk Thistle which is a tall and formidably prickly plant with a beautiful purple flower. This is open country with primarily weedy fields. The more I looked and listened, the more sparrows I saw and heard and soon kept hearing an insect-like buzz, repeated 2 to 3 times, in addition to the more melodious Savannahs and Vespers. With some bird guide research, I narrowed things down to a couple of possibilities and then listened to the CD. I am nearly clueless with bird calls, but several years ago Steve and Andree had given me this CD, which is always in the car, and I am beginning to refer to it more and more. The buzz was unmistakably the Clay-colored Sparrow. Now I just had to SEE it. I do not list birds I do not see. Nothing virtuous here; just my personal decision.

So the next day, I listened and soon heard the buzz, buzz, buzz. I got off the sidewalk and moved slowly through high weeds, which wasn't so bad except the ground underneath was uneven and I had to be careful not to fall. I did wonder about ticks, although I don't think this is the right habitat for them. I walked up a bank, over some minimal fencing wire and just stood still, repeating my mantra of "Let the birds come to you." After five minutes or so of standing quietly, I began hearing the buzzing again and soon spotted the bird. I knew the field marks and it WAS a Clay-colored, a life bird for me! There were a couple of them and they would dive under cover for a few minutes and then pop out and sing again. No one was near, even though I was out in the open and close to the whole northern strip mall / box store area. The sun was out, the sky was very blue and a whole world of sparrows was singing and nesting and fledging and surviving in this habitat which certainly will be expropriated within a decade for something we humans want. But for now, it is idyllic.

Since then I have heard and seen these rather unobtrusive sparrows a couple of times, in different spots in the fields. They don't show themselves like the Savannah or Vesper sparrows; however, and I needed to do a little work to find them. I think of this as another puzzle piece now in place in my perception of the natural world, the Clay-colored Sparrow piece.

What I have found much more challenging recently is the identification of grasses, with their ligules, lemmas, glumes, auricles, panicles, spikelets, bracts and awns. Still, I am now finally noticing and appreciating grasses and how graceful they are.

I need to remember to talk to Betony about botany as we gather for her wedding next month. A serious botanist needs a dissecting microscope I discovered, but I am hoping there is a simple way for at least figuring out the common grasses in my field.