ML492778241

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

**RARE. At 39.997071, -105.248325. Lucky find on my walk! This is the 2nd state record of this subspecies group. A large, dark reddish-chestnut sparrow. Only slightly smaller than a male Spotted Towhee that it was associating with. Mostly bright yellow bill with the top of the upper mandible fading into a dark gray. Overall the bill is medium sized for a sparrow. Upper breast starts as a dark brown and fades into arrowhead- shaped white spots and eventually as it comes in between the legs it is completely white. The spots get smaller as the go down toward the belly. Completely black eyes with a weak white eye-ring only breaking at the far left corner and far right corner. Completely pink legs with long claws. No sign of wing-bars. The vent is cream-colored with dark brown arrowhead-shaped spots leading down to the tail. The throat is white with small brownish spots. The malar stripe is also white with small brownish spots. The back is completely reddish-chestnut brown slightly more red on wings and tail. The sparrow was seen foraging in the grass at the edge of the path, then flew into the chokecherry thicket, chasing a male Spotted Towhee. The chasing continued for a while, but eventually stopped. It was then seen foraging on the floor of the thicket. The sparrow subsequently flew up to a perch in a nearby small tree, near some House Finches. From there the sparrow flew from the tree back into another chokecherry thicket, where I lost sight of it. The sparrow flew with tail held low. Sooty ssp. seems to fit best. Many photos.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX70 HS

Lens

3.8-247mm

ISO

800

Focal length

170.6 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/125 sec

Dimensions

5184 pixels x 3888 pixels

Original file size

6.87 MB