LEARNING TO IDENTIFY THOSE LBJs (LITTLE BROWN JOBS)

Once again, stay-at-home birdwatchers can set aside the weekend of February 20-21 to watch and count the birds that come to their feeders or appear in their yard.. To prepare you for this count and to help you get more enjoyment from your feeder and yard birds, I am going to encourage you to appreciate the sparrows that many of you think are too difficult to learn. Perhaps you feel that sparrows are “little brown birds” with no particular appeal, so you may not agree with me when I state that sparrows make a stunning group of birds and can bring you as much pleasure as cardinals and chickadees.

Each species has its own distinguishing features. If you know to look for them, you will be able to sort out the different birds. After all, you don’t claim that all blonde people or all brunettes look alike — you recognize individuals by many aspects of their appearance. You can do the very same with sparrows! You can help yourself enormously with this task if you will consult a field guide’s text and picture of the birds I describe below. Actually, we’re not talking many different species, but often sparrows are confused with similarly-sized finches and English sparrows, which, despite their name are not sparrows at all, but a type of weaver finch introduced into this country during the last century from Europe. In my next column I’ll give some tips for unmasking these sparrow look-alikes.

On Cape Cod, our most numerous winter sparrow species are the song, white-throated, and tree, and of these, the white-throated is probably the most easily recognized. Its name indicates its most distinguishing feature: its very obvious white throat. Most white-throats also have a bright yellow patch between their bill and eye and a mostly dark bill. Far less common in our area are white-crowned sparrows that show a more decidedly black-and- white striped crown, a whitish throat, a pink or yellowish bill and a more upright posture.

Song sparrows are year-round birds and are almost surely found in everyone’s yard. They are much too agreeable to be lumped into “Little Brown Jobs (LBJs).” Song sparrows show a broad, dark stripe bordering a whitish throat, and most have streaking on sides and breasts that often converges into a central spot. If you watch your sparrows for a while, you should notice that song sparrows have long rounded tails which they pump when they are in flight.

The bird most likely to be confused with the song sparrow is the larger, more brightly colored and more heavily streaked fox sparrow, which, unfortunately, is an unusual winter visitor on the Cape. Although the American tree sparrow also has a central breast spot like the song sparrrow’s, it has a plain breast, a gray head with a rufous crown that is somewhat diffused in winter, and rufous patches at the sides of the breast. They also show two white wing bars. Tree sparrows seek areas that have a lot of weedy areas around. Well-groomed neighborhoods seldom appeal to these handsome guests.

I hope that this starter on sparrow identification will inspire you to take a closer look at the LBJs in your yard. Look for each bird’s distinguishing features. Ask yourself: Does this bird have a plain or streaked breast? Does it have a rufous crown or a striped one? What color is its throat? Does it have conspicuous wing bars? What kind of tail does it have — notched or rounded? When you can answer these, you will be well on your way to identifying our sparrow species.