"Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience ― waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking."
― Gary Paulsen
Here's a waning gibbous moon photograph from a few nights ago. The evening of the harvest moon was overcast here in southern Wisconsin, though a full moon isn't necessarily the best time to take photographs of it ― no shadows for crater detail. And so under the moon and subdued light, sparrows migrated while we slept. You'll recall last weekend I got some nifty photographs of White-crowned Sparrows. I posted the following comment on Facebook along with my photographs from that particular outing:
Prognostication! And the very next day a birder found a Harris's Sparrow at Eagle Heights Gardens, adjacent to UW Lakeshore Nature Preserve. It was Rowan Gibson, a young birder that used to attend my field trips ― he discovered this sparrow from the north. You can see from this October 2021 sighting eBird map that they're plentiful just west of the Mississippi River, and perhaps more common along Lake Michigan. Here in Dane County we'll get a few during fall migration, but it's been several years since I've encountered one at Pheasant Branch Prairie.
Rather than take PTO from work to make time to see the sparrow, I patiently waited for the weekend to glimpse my first Harris's Sparrows since 2016, one of which was a gorgeous adult in fall plumage. Sometime during the week another birder discovered there were two Harris's Sparrows at the gardens. When my birding posse and I got there Saturday morning, we found three! Mark Johnson was able to get this photo showing all three sparrows together (below). It was super-cool watching and listening to their chortling calls toward one another. Well, they are Zonotrichia querula. From querulous, which means habitually complaining.
In fact, all of these Harris's Sparrow photographs were taken by Mark Johnson [©], as I did not bring my camera and spotting scope to the outing. Instead, I chose to concentrate on guiding my birding pals for the best possible views and photographic opportunities (for Mark). This one is quite a stunner:
Another birder friend contemplated age and sex of these particular three birds. To be sure, all we can say is that the three are immatures. Harris's Sparrows are sexually monomorphic. While males tend to have a little more black on their chins and throats compared to females, there is considerable overlap. The only way to determine male and female is by bird in hand. Additionally, they can have individual plumage characteristics, so it's possible the three are clutch-mates and not necessarily differentially aged immatures. Given their behavior of following one another around at the gardens, that wouldn't be all that surprising to me.
Dottie, Mark, and Sylvia were over the moon with the views (and photographs) we got. Speaking of Harris's Sparrows, have you read Return to Warden's Grove? This is a fantastic book about a researcher who spends a few summers studying them up in Nunavut on their breeding grounds ― a brilliant and informative book to expand your appreciation for these neat boreal sparrows.
Finally, did you know that the Harris's Sparrow was first collected in Missouri in 1834 by Thomas Nuttall? It was later named by John James Audubon for amateur ornithologist Edward Harris, a companion of Audubon’s on his 1843 Missouri River trip. What a shame it would be if the name is replaced with some woke-acceptable flapdoodle name ― they will always be 'Harris's Sparrows' to me and I'll not refer to them by any other name. Naturally, the onslaught of Dane County's most reliable birders had already gotten the Harris's Sparrow(s) during the week. Having patience and waiting is risky, but does have its benefits: I was very grateful not to be there for the birding paparazzi. Oh goodness gracious! The FOMO is strong out there...
Moon image © 2021 Mike McDowell