Oh hello there, can I help you?

I took picture after picture, hoping that I could get a good shot.  And then, as if sensing my frustration, the Brewer’s Sparrow flew down on a branch mere feet from me.  There’s even a ladybug in this picture!!!

This species doesn’t have any easy markers for identification.  The guidebook mentions a white eye ring, but really it’s the absence of markings that make him identifiable.

That, and the fact that they’re most commonly found in sagebrush.  Which is where I found him.

The Song Sparrow, on the other hand, is easily identifiable by the brown spot on his breast.

The Brewer’s Sparrow may not be easily identifiable, but I really like his pink beak and bedroom eyes.

But sparrows are still adorable, especially the females.

The BirdCam has a bit of a lag between when it detects motion and when it takes pictures so I have a lot of pictures of nothing.  The most entertaining bit so far is how FAST the seed dwindles.

When you cycle quickly through the pictures, it’s like a jagged movie where the seed vanishes.  The sparrows are hungry!

The gardens, however, are full of birds and bunnies!  Very hungry looking bunnies.

I got some great shots of a Black-Headed Grosbeak.  There are many types of grosbeaks.  Birdchick has a beautiful picture of a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.  Utah is supposed to have them but so far I’ve only seen Black-Headed Grosbeaks.

The first time I ever saw a grosbeak was at my feeders.  He was terribly shy and so I could only get pictures through the glass.  Grosbeaks prefer forests, so they were a lot more comfortable with me in their space.  His breast is puffy in this picture because he was singing.

Black-Headed Grosbeaks are sometimes confused with Spotted Towhees.  In performing an identification, make sure you look at the eyes.  Spotted Towhees have red eyes.

Black-Headed Grosbeaks have a lovely song.  I’m embarrassed to write that I thought I was listening to a House Finch singing until a saw the bird.  I’ve been listening to the Stokes bird identification tracks, but they’re not sinking in yet.  I can identify almost any track from the 1990′s based on four bars of music, but not these bird tracks.  All that talent wasted on crappy alternative music.

Grosbeak refers to the large beak of a group of seed-eating passerines, i.e. songbirds.  You can really see in the above picture that their beaks look disproportionately large compared to other songbirds.  See, for example, a House Sparrow.

Now compare the female Black-Headed Grosbeak to the House Sparrow.  If it weren’t for that beak, you could easily confuse the grosbeak for a sparrow, right?

I mean, checkout her crown.

It’s pretty similar to a white-crowned sparrow.

So watch the beak!

Imagine, your gutters have so much stuff in them, that stagnant water sits there.  And the birds don’t mind because there isn’t much water in Salt Lake City so bathing in filthy water is better than no bath.

Jon and I spent several minutes taking pictures and laughing at this house.

The birds looked so happy, diving in the gutters

and coming up dripping with water.

so make sure to clean your gutters because the birds are watching you

I’m happy to report that Utah has Dark-Eyed Juncos.

Juncos will forgo the feeders if there is any seed on the ground because they naturally eat in the grasslands.

Although they will use feeders if the ground is lacking food.

They blend quite well in their winter surroundings.

This is one of my favorite pictures because it looks like the threat of House Sparrows triggered the robot inside the junco.

must defend the feeder

Lastly, I’ve thrown in a lovely picture of a Dark-Eyed Junco from California.  I’m pleased with the dappled background.

I’m amazed at how hearty the birds are here because they survive this weather.  I could only spend about five minutes outside before jumping back in the car.  Yet the field in the above picture was filled with pheasants.  Sadly I don’t have any pictures yet because all you have to do is look at a pheasant and it flies or hides in the brush.

The snow has been outside for so long that it forms a thick crunchy crust.

Brigham City is about 45 miles north of Farmington, where I found all those Northern Harriers.  But the weather is substantially colder.  Compare the cattail in Brigham City to the one I posted last week.  This one is coated in snow.

Utah has several types of birds that also live year round in California.  These poor birds, I want to tell them about how they should be wintering in Cali.

Lady, I am so cold right now, you can’t even imagine

Many of the Song Sparrows were sitting in the brush looking so very cold, but many were also flying around

and playing in the snow

and looking at the tiniest sliver of grass underneath the snow

I’m glad that they don’t know what they’re missing.

The males’ bibs look very faded.  I’m not sure if that’s a Utah variant, the time of year, or what.  Here’s a House Sparrow in California for comparison.

The sparrows look so cold nestled in the blue spruce.

We have a lot of them in the neighborhood, which is nice because they’re very happy birds.  Chirping all day and flitting about.

There is a blue spruce in my yard.  I’m checking it frequently for birds.  I really hope that it contains some nuthatches.

First you look at the front and check the head.  This bird has a yellow head.  Other sparrows will have a white stripe, a more narrow stripe, brown feathers, etc.  The golden crown is the easiest way to identify this Golden-Crowned Sparrow.  It’s specially easy during winter plumage when the crown has no striping.

Then you can look at the back.  Check to see if the stripes cover the entire back.  Also check if the tail feathers have any distinctive features.  For example, Vesper Sparrows have white outer tail feathers.  The Golden-Crowned Sparrow, on the other hand, has only dark-brown tail feathers.

From a side view, check the wing pattern.  Are the tips white?  This is not the best identifier because many sparrows have white tips.  Next, check whether there is a stripe from the sparrow’s beak to his eye to the back of his head.  Golden-Crowned Sparrows have a faint stripe.

Lastly, you can check if the bird has any attitude.  This is my favorite picture of the Golden-Crowned Sparrow.

The seals were lounging about.

They looks exhausted!

They would look up at me with sleepy faces, and then their heads would flop back down.

I like this thoughtful expression.  His face reminds me of a cat with those big whiskers and almond-shaped eyes.

I made my way to the marshes, which were full of birds.  I saw a little sparrow on a log and approached.

This is a Song Sparrow.  They’re extremely common.  Many birders are unimpressed by their appearance, but I really like them.  They let you get close and they have lovely songs.

The easiest way to distinguish between different types of sparrows is to look at the pattern on their chest and head.  The Song Sparrow has dark-brown spots on his chest, with a prominent spot in the middle, and white markings on his head below and above the eyes.

Other sparrows will have yellow markings above the eyes or on the wings, or a colored patch in the center of his head directly above the nose.

Black Phoebes were everywhere today.  I saw the first one on a sign post.

The second one was catching bugs.  You can still see it in his mouth!

It was almost as if the phoebes were posing for me.  The next one was in branches backed by a blue sky.

Then he flew into the brush.

Then on a bush.

Then, I swear he asked me if he should pose on a man-made object to serve as social commentary about our interference with nature.

Then he went back into the brush, but positioned himself carefully so that I could see the white tips of his feathers.

Then some more bushes.

In case I wanted a brighter background, he flew over to some driftwood.

And back on a post.

I actually left out several other places where he sat.  Such an obliging little bird.

I really love living along the coast because of the frequent fog.

After the detour we reached the reserve. Ano Nueovo State Reserve is very popular. People at work asked me if I had visited and I didn’t really understand because I’ve been up and down the coast from San Francisco to Monterey. So what’s the big deal?

Well, there are the sea lions, which swell to a population of 3,000 in the winter months.

And the pond is pretty nice.

Plus there are TONS of lizards.

But for me the jackpot is this!

Because where there is brush, there are birds! I saw three new lifers yesterday: a savannah sparrow, a gold-crowned sparrow, and a yellow-rumped warbler. Below is the yellow-rumped warbler.

Okay, I see some yellow and she has a lovely eye ring.

But what’s this about a yellow rump or, as Birdchick likes to call them, butterbuts?

What a great butt! These pictures are of the female. The male is blue-grey on the back and more yellow on the front. This place is such a great find, I’ll be sure to go back soon and stay in the brush all day.