Mascara Sparra

Big, bright, and beautiful, Lark Sparrows are common in southeast Arizona much of the year. But these next few weeks will see them at their most abundant, as the birds wintering in the west Mexican deserts start to move north to spread out through their impressively broad breeding range.

This is a bird that, as Roger Tory Peterson once remarked of the Bald Eagle, is “all field mark.” The intricately marked tail, the strongly patterned wing, the bright white belly are each of them enough to identify the species; but it’s that incredible head pattern that really catches the eye.

Lark Sparrows have pretty much every head marking a bird can have, with the exception of a median throat stripe (ah, there’s a good quiz question!). It’s no wonder that the front matter of so many field guides over the generations have featured this bird and its complex maquillage.