Between the Lines

Lake Havasu State Park is a busy place on a warm October weekend, and this American Pipit, along with 40 of his friends, was pushed by the crowds into the “overflow” parking lot. This species loves open spaces and clear sight lines, and we were able to approach to within a few feet in the search for “streaky” pipits of other, rarer taxa.

There weren’t any there, of course, but I did get this badly focused photo. Smudgy as it is, the image still shows some great pipit characters: the ever so slight concavity of the upper mandible, the long hind claw, and the long, wide tertials concealing the primaries.