Comments on: What islands has this stranger seen?

By: Maureen Dunphy

Maureen Dunphy — Sun, 01 May 2016 22:46:58 +0000

We have a winner! Congratulations, Karen Klein!

By: Karen Anne Klein

Karen Anne Klein — Sun, 01 May 2016 16:50:42 +0000

Washington Island and Rock Island in Wisconsin

By: Maureen Dunphy

Maureen Dunphy — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 13:02:22 +0000

Here’s another guess at my mystery bird from Janet Scott, a friend of a blog follower: “House Sparrow males have gray caps, rusty brown on each side of cap and light breasts. When the chin patches are developing it could look like a stripe. Did your friend notice the beak, insect eater or seed eater?”
I’m sorry I didn’t notice the beak; the odd color combination was so striking. The bird was on my finch feeder and was definitely eating seed. But we have house sparrows galore and I’ve never seen one that looked like this.
Yesterday, I identified a male brown-headed cowbird at my feeder, not a particularly happy discovery.

By: Maureen Dunphy

Maureen Dunphy — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 16:17:30 +0000

Thanks, Lynn! He or she looked larger than a house sparrow. The most distinctive features besides the rusty patches on each side of the crown were his/her very white breast with the black band at the neck. My books show yellow on the white-throated sparrow and there wasn’t any yellow. Maybe a “bleached” white-crowned sparrow. If you could reverse the white and gray on the white-crowned and add the neck band . . .

By: Lynn Tiessen

Lynn Tiessen — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 15:45:28 +0000

We narrowed down the bird possibilities to white crowned sparrow or white throated sparrow. There are some colour variations…and of course the female options. That is our happy hour suggestion!

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:39:32 +0000

Great blog, thanks for all the bird info, especially about hummingbirds!