[EBB Sightings] White-crowned Sparrow

How about their accents? :-) Perhaps only the late Dr. Luis Baptista
could distinguish these two by vocalizations.

I checked Pyle's guide (the one banders use) and the measurements
are so very close for these two races that seeing any differences in
primary or wing projection in the field seems unlikely. My thought
here was that since pugetensis is a long-distance migrant and nuttalli
are apparently sedentary, the wing proportions might hold some clue.
But this reasoning doesn't seem to apply here. The only difference
between these two mentioned in Pyle probably would never apply
here because it refers to crowns of Second Year males before the
end of July.

Knowledgeable birders in the Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara areas
are aware of their local nuttalli breeding locations. These folks seem
to guess more confidently when they see a pugetensis in a location
some distance away from the nuttalli breeding areas. They opine
that nuttalli are supposed to be very sedentary, not known to wander
far from their local patch. What's far? I don't know, maybe a half mile?
You would still have to consider the timing. I suppose, however, if
you saw an unseasonal pugetensis far from the nuttalli range, you'd
have to consider the possibility of a nuttalli that's dispersed farther
than what might be expected.

Similar to the Rufous/Allen's Hummingbird scenario, if you're up for
distinguishing the races of White-crowned Sparrows, you can refer
to these two, collectively, as "pugettalli", "nuttallensis", "pugenuts",
or "nuttapuges".

Les Chibana, Palo Alto



On Aug 9, 2004, at 8:41 PM, rscalf at jps.net wrote:

> Chances are pretty good that those are resident White-crowns of the 
> nuttali race rather than migratory White-crowns, gambeli or 
> pugetensis. There are pockets of nuttali White-crowns in�Emeryville.� 
> I wish I knew more about seperating nuttali from pugetensis (by other 
> than calendar).� Does anyone have advice on this?
> �
> ��� Rusty Scalf
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hugh and Rosita
> Sent: Aug 9, 2004 7:20 PM
> To: sightings
> Subject: [EBB Sightings] White-crowned Sparrow
> Today around 11 A.M., two White-crowned Sparrows were seen in the 
> bushes near the parking lot at Point Emery.� This was after finding 
> the continuing Baird's Sandpiper behind the vegetable stand at 
> University Avenue and Frontage Road to the west of I-80.� Three Black 
> Oystercatchers were at the far south end spit at the new East Bay 
> Regional Park in Oakland's Middle Harbor shortly before noon.�
>  �
> Hugh Harvey