ID help - Larimer Co Rd 5

[David Wade]

Greetings Birders, I went back to Larimer County Road 5 to look for a Cassin's Sparrow reported earlier in the day. I found Cassin's but missed the Baird's Sparrow because either they weren't singing, or the wind blew their songs away. Further north of the Baird's field, I came across two birds that that left me a little puzzled, a bit excited, and very anxious. I noticed two birds on the road ahead of me and I had no idea what they were. My initial reaction was they were young birds but of what? Horned Lark? no -pink legs, Lark Bunting? no - wrong bill. I decided to shoot first and ask questions later, below, are some of the photos I took. I've eliminated sparrows or longspurs as possibilities and am left at pipet? I think these two birds are Sprague's Pipets! I guess I'm just not confident in the identification and don't want to embarrass myself. So, can anybody identify these?

https://flic.kr/p/wm6qhA
https://flic.kr/p/vFFkcN
https://flic.kr/p/vFPREK
https://flic.kr/p/vFPTsx
https://flic.kr/p/wDbDbx
https://flic.kr/p/wCGFPP
https://flic.kr/p/wCGvU8
https://flic.kr/p/wm5sx9

David Wade
Ft Collins, CO

[David Wade]

Looks like I did it,  I made myself a fool.  Nick Komar straightened me out. Turns out they are Horned Larks.

Mea Culpa
David Wade
Ft Collins

On Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 12:43:33 AM UTC-6, David Wade wrote:

[Deborah Carstensen]

Oh, come on, you're not a fool! Every time people reach out for help on IDs they're taking a risk of looking silly, but what better use of this format than to get help with birds? 

   The more people ask for help with IDs, the more others, like myself, will be willing to do the same. Then some of us will become smarter and the others of us will look smarter! 

Deb Carstensen, Littleton 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Jeff J Jones]

Ha! Hi David. I remember being fooled by the same thing and came to the same false Sprague’s Pipit conclusion as you did quite a few years ago. Folks on this list correctly and quickly suggested juv. Horned Lark.

 

Nothing foolish at all of course. But rather a common mistake at this time of year when there are an abundance of juveniles about, which a) few have experience with and b) field guides often don’t do justice.

 

Me personally, glad to see someone else make the same mistake; and isn’t it great that we have this resource to ask questions and get great assistance.

 

Jeff J Jones

(jjo...@jonestc.com)

Teller County - 8500' - Montane Woodlands

[David Wade]

Howdy Folks,  First, thanks to all those people that replied either here or to me personally. I appreciate your feedback. I've figured out exactly where I went off track on my path of identification. I use the book form of Sibley's 1st edition in the field. There I saw that Spragues Pipet has pale/pink legs and Sibley's  illustrations show all ages of Horned Lark with black legs. I took the first trait I found as absolute and  excluded Horned Lark as a possibility right from the get-go. That led me astray to the "not-quite-right" Spragues. What really bothers me is that I remember getting real hung up on a juvy Horned Lark last year too! I didn't learn my lesson then,  hopefully I won't repeat it next year- but probably will.

So others don't repeat my mistake here are some clues to look for that separate Pipets and Larks. Primary extension is long for Horned, it extends beyond the tertials. Sprague's wing extension ends at or near the tertials. The outer tail feathers are extensively white on the Sprague's and white is thin or hardly noticeable on the Horned Lark. On the tertials, Horned has a white edge then a subterminal black edge. Sprague's tertials are edged in pale buff/white without the black. I also should have picked up on the crouching posture of the bird pictured away from me. Finally, There are 10's of thousands of Horned Larks in Colorado right now and if there are Sprague's Pipets in Colorado right now the number would be less then 10 (I'm speculating here).

Good luck and good birding,