Smart Sparrows

My fondness for Rufous-winged Sparrow requires no justification: just look at the bird (thanks, Colin, for the great photo in the medallion at the top of this page)! But it turns out that this beautiful and scarce Aimophila is more than just charming; Rufous-wings are also smart, as we discovered this morning during the field portion of an AimAd sparrow clinic.

Silent and shy all winter, Rufous-winged Sparrows have begun to sing with the new warmth of the last couple of weeks, and their light trills are once again familiar background noise issuing from grassy mesquite bosques. Bill Forbes’s yard at Elephant Head hosts at least 3 singing males, and the birds are easily seen at close range at the seed piles.

This morning, though, as we watched, a pair arrived to find most of the feeders already occupied by hordes of Lark Buntings, Lark Sparrows, and White-crowned Sparrows. Daunted by the size and poor table manners of their cousins, the Rufous-wings headed to the area beneath an automatic feeder; unfortunately, they found most of the seed there already consumed, probably by the dozens and dozens of Brewer’s Sparrows that were also trying to stay out of the way of the bigger birds.

So the Rufous-wings flew up to the spout on the hopper, pecking at it in hopes that it might spill something, anything, on the ground. Of course it didn’t: the feeder is strictly governed by a timer, which opens the hopper for a few seconds every couple of hours. But all the same, these emberizid Newtons had figured out that manna comes from above.