ML618851202

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Medium-sized, short-tailed sparrow with a large, conical bill, narrow but well-defined white eye ring, yellow-orangish spot at front of supercilia, and a slightly reddish cheek. Breast and belly were whitish, with very faint streaking at the top and sides of breast. We first heard it singing -- the "complex" song, not the simpler buzzy trill -- near the southern edge of the airport, very close to where we found a pair last year. (See our checklists from May 14 and August 6, 2023 for details and photos.) We tried for a while to pin down where the singing was coming from, and eventually Camden located it a pretty good distance north of the fence. For the next several minutes we watched as it moved around a little and sang from a few different spots, including a tuft of grass and a small stump. After a while it flew up, headed south over the fence and across the road, briefly perching in a small tree before flying back and singing from atop the fence. As we slowly crept in for a bit of a closer look, it got wise to us and flew back north, disappearing into some taller grass a few dozen meters beyond the fence. It was exciting to see at least one of these here for the second year in a row. Hopefully there's a second one in there somewhere and they'll breed again, as we suspect they did last summer.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Lens

EF400mm f/5.6L USM

ISO

800

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

1800 pixels x 1200 pixels

Original file size

794.67 KB