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April 15, 1999:
1:00pm (approximately): I was heading over to the bird feeders to restock them. As always, I was watching the birds that were there as I walked slowly. I saw a sparrow about 40 feet away, which I thought was a Chipping Sparrow. It flew into the apple tree, about 35 feet away. When it was in the apple tree, I thought it was a field sparrow, however, it still looked
wrong. I looked with my binoculars. From the back, the sparrow kind of looked like what the books show for Clay-colored Sparrow. He turned around. It was a CLAY-COLORED SPARROW! [A life bird for me!]
After 1 second of seeing the Clay-colored Sparrow from the front, he went onto the ground. Another 1/2 second later, and a gray squirrel jumped off of a platform feeder, and landed only 6 to 12 inches from the sparrow; the sparrow flew up into the trees, however, I lost sight him. A few seconds later, all of the finches and sparrows flew, as did the Blackbirds. I suspect that a hawk was in the area.
We watched all afternoon, and even took a walk looking for the Clay-colored Sparrow. We searched all of the bushes on our property for him, but could not relocate him. I scanned the feeder birds all afternoon, hoping that he would show up again. My sister did not get to see him, and I wanted him to come back so that she could add him to her life list, and so that we could try to get him on a video tape, which would help confirm the sighting.
After I was done refilling the bird feeders, The local Cooper's Hawk came around. After the Cooper's Hawk had already come twice, I was outside (my sister was too) and I was listening to a Titmouse calling in a nearby bush. The titmouse changed his normal everyday calls and made higher pitched warning calls. I looked over, and there was the fairly small (male) Cooper's Hawk diving at a junco. He was about 1 foot from the junco, which managed to zig-zag and escape. The hawk landed in a bush and scattered, as well as tried to catch, more juncos and sparrows. He then flew off.
About 5 minutes later, I noticed a lack of birds at the feeders again, as well as more warning calls, coming from nearby bushes. I looked with my binoculars, and there, sitting in the apple tree at the feeders, was the very persistent Cooper's Hawk, for the fourth time (that we saw) in just one day! His markings, posture etc. made him look so COOL (through the binoculars)! When we saw us, he flew off, scattering more finches and doves. Since the hawk was at the bird feeders so much this afternoon, we did not have quite such high hopes of seeing the Clay-colored Sparrow again.
Late in the afternoon, as it was nearing evening, my sister was on the front porch, and saw a sparrow that she thought at first was a Chipping Sparrow, on the driveway. She looked with her binoculars, and immediately recognized it as the Clay-colored Sparrow (add 1 more bird to her life list!). She had the video camera, and got a little bit of him on tape, even though he was too far away to get anything good. She decided to try get closer, to get better footage. As soon as her foot started to move, off he went, over the feeders. He ate there, and while he was eating, I got to confirm that it was the same one that I had seen earlier.
A minute later, he flew up North of the house, and we went to investigate the bushes and small trees that were in that area. We found him, and got some video footage, but still not good enough to see much. He kept going in and out of view, flying back and forth from the bushes to the feeders, etc.
There is some seed on the ground in front of the house for the sparrows. The Clay-colored Sparrow flew there and joined a couple of juncos, a Song Sparrow, and a Chipping Sparrow, only 10 feet in front of a window! Had we been in the house, we could have gotten some GREAT footage of him. There was just one problem: we were not in the house! We were 75 feet away, by the bushes that he had been landing in.
After the sparrows all flew from that spot, we came inside. We waited, and from the windows, located the Clay-colored Sparrow in a bush out back. A few minutes later, he flew back out front, and landed on a finch feeder filled that we had filled with white millet seed just a day or two before, 20-25 feet away from the window. We got him on video tape; not the clearest, but at least enough to show his identity as a Clay-colored Sparrow. He came and went for the next 20 minutes, and we got about 5-8 minutes of somewhat blurry video footage(a window-screen was in the way).
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