Dan's Feathursday Feature: LeConte's Sparrow

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights, and photography of Chicago birder Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.

It’s October in Chicago, and there’s just no avoiding it. Pumpkin mania is everywhere. Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin milk shakes, pumpkin latte, even—cover your ears, nonna—pumpkin gnocchi. And the one that gets me gnashing my teeth: pumpkin beer. But when you think you’ve seen them all, along comes one that takes the (pumpkin) cake. As I was doing some research to prepare for this essay, I came across an entry by a reputable birding source that referred to the LeConte’s Sparrow as “pumpkin-faced.”

Is nothing sacred?

It’s true that October and early November is the best period to see these rare visitors as they pass through on their way south. So comparing the LeConte’s Sparrow to the Halloween gourd is timely, if nothing else. But “pumpkin-faced?” Besides caving to the tired pumpkin cliché de jour, this description makes the poor bird sound like a clown. If you’re looking for adjectives to describe the distinctive plumage of the LeConte’s Sparrow, and you’ve got your heart set on an edible color, a quick visit to the Benjamin Moore display at your local home center will give you plenty of creative ideas: Glowing Apricot, Tangelo, Sharp Cheddar, Peach Crisp….

OK, I’ll end my rant here. After all, I guess it could have been worse: sweet-potato-faced?

To describe the LeConte’s Sparrow’s color, I like Benjamin Moore’s Glowing Apricot. It’s not quite orange, but not yellow, either. And the apricot hue is accented beautifully by crisp black streaks on the bird’s crown and flanks, with a thin black eye-line that looks like it was carefully drawn by a Japanese calligrapher. The contrasts created by the black lines really do make this bird appear to glow. The black/apricot motif is especially striking on the LeConte’s Sparrow’s back, where each individual feather has a charcoal black center surrounded by glowing apricot and a chiffon white outer fringe. As these feathers overlap each other on the bird’s mantle, they create a bold pattern of stripes that make the LeConte’s Sparrow as beautiful from behind as from the front or side. Everything about this sparrow is crisp, clean and elegant.

Unfortunately for us birders, beautiful LeConte’s Sparrows are as introverted as they are elegant. They are extremely elusive and very adept at remaining out of the glare of the spotlight. Even trained and experienced ornithologists and naturalists struggle to find this bird. During a recent study of their breeding habits in northern Wisconsin in spring—when males of all species are most vocal and ostentatious—scientists were able to locate (aurally) eighty-six distinct males singing to mark their territories. But of those eighty-six singing male LeConte’s Sparrows, only eight birds came out into clear view long enough for the researchers to see and visually verify them. Little is known of the bird’s nesting habits because practically nobody can ever find a nest! In fact, though the species was first described and categorized in 1790, it took almost a century before the first LeConte’s Sparrow’s nest was found. It took scientists less time to find tracks of the sub-atomic proton after it was first discovered than to find this secretive sparrow’s nest.

The LeConte’s Sparrow breeds in the marshy areas of the great grasslands of central-west Canada and North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. They spend the winter months in the southern U.S. On their way back and forth between Canada and the gulf coast during spring and fall migration, they pass through the nation’s middle, offering us Midwestern birders ample opportunity to seek and not find them.

Here is a typical day in the life of a Midwestern birder on the prowl for a LeConte’s sparrow: Arrive at your favorite grassland park at dawn. Ignore the message scribbled in the dirt at the park entrance by yesterday’s birders—"Abandon hope all ye who enter here”—and plunge into the waist-high grass. Within ten steps you are soaked from the knees down by the dew on the bluestem and bergamot and asters. Sparrows flush left and right, like popcorn on a hot griddle—Swamp, White-crowned, Song, White-throated, Savannah, Field, Lincoln’s. They perch briefly, long enough for you to ID them, but your interest is elsewhere today. You’ve done your homework, so you know to be on the lookout for a tiny bird with a hint of yellow-orange that won’t flush until you almost step on them, flies weakly for a very short distance barely above the grasses, and then disappears back into the grasses.

A bird that seems to match that description flushes from ten feet away and drops again low in the grasses. Heart thumping, you manage to get the binoculars on them. You meet their gaze and realize the bird is a Sedge Wren.

For two hours you wade on. This park is seventy acres of grassland. That’s plenty of space for a five-inch bird to hide. Your heart rate skyrockets only one more time. This time the bird is clearly an orange/yellow-colored sparrow, but you only get a split-second look at them with the binoculars before they disappear in the grass. You can’t be sure it was a LeConte’s Sparrow, because the LeConte’s Sparrow has a close cousin, the Nelson’s Sparrow, whose color is very similar. I’d call the Nelson’s Sparrow a Sharp Cheddar instead of Glowing Apricot. If you see the birds clearly, the IDs are relatively easy. But when you’re up to your elbows in wet grasses trying to get a look at a tiny orangish sparrow hiding low, you can be forgiven for not being able to distinguish Glowing Apricot from Sharp Cheddar.

You return to your car, wet and tired and LeConte’s-less. You vow never to do that again.

You’re back the next day, of course. Today, though, you forego the bushwhacking and stick to the beaten path. Five minutes into your walk, as you scan the grasses searching for an orangish sparrow, suddenly a LeConte’s Sparrow pops up from a clump of bent-over grasses not twenty feet away, lands on a rope fence, and just sits there as if waiting for a bus. They’re not bothered in the least as you raise your camera and snap dozens of photos. Eventually they tire of their perch and disappear in the grasses on the other side of the path, leaving you with a smile on your face that lasts all week.

You bird the park five more times before the end of October and don’t see another LeConte’s Sparrow for the rest of that season.

I’m not making this up, or exaggerating. I’m convinced you only see LeConte’s Sparrows when they want you to see them. When and why are you chosen? Well, as Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” You have to be there to be chosen.

Even when the birds wants you to see them, it’s easy to let the opportunity slip through your fingers. It happened to me once (at least). Fortunately, on this occasion I was saved by my camera. It was at the end of a day of birding, and I was photographing a small flock of Pine Siskin, Common Redpoll, and American Goldfinch plucking seeds from the dried flower heads. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and dozens of birds were flying back and forth all around me. I had a great time snapping hundreds of shots and soaking up the energy of that flock of birds. Later that day, as I sorted through the photos, I came across one with a bird flying into the frame from the upper right corner. The bird was not in crisp focus, so I was about to crop them out of the photo…until I took a closer look. I was amazed to see the bird was none other than a LeConte’s Sparrow. I had spent the entire morning in a fruitless search for that elusive bird, only to have one photo-bomb me just before I headed for home.

It can happen to you. There is still time this fall for a LeConte’s Sparrow to find you. Grab your pumpkin latte, throw a pumpkin bagel in your pocket, and head to a grassland near you. Expect the unexpected. And don’t discard any photos before looking carefully for surprises in the upper corners.