L sparrows

I bet a lot of birders don't get up close and personal views of LeConte's Sparrows all that often.  The lakefront seems to be a reasonable place to find them in migration.  Usually the birds are not well seen, but their habit of waiting until the last possible second to flush paid off earlier in the week when Tim spotted one practically at our feet.

I never managed a completely un-obstructed view, but as far as skulking Ammodramids go, this one was pretty amazing.

The spring adults are a lot sharper than LeConte's sparrow in fall.  When the bird would turn its head away the white midline crown stripe was nicely visible.  You can compare it to old Nelson's Sparrow pics; Nelson's is a lot darker and much more deeply colored overall.

Just like LeConte's, I hadn't seen a Lark Sparrow since 2010.  Tim and I were walking the Scout Campground at Floral the other day and a sparrow flushed with bright white tail corners.  You can bet that was a bird we were going to track down even if Vesper would be more likely.  Tim picked it out in one of the jack pines.  It quickly settled back down to forage. The pic is a heavily cropped distant shot since we didn't approach it knowing that it would actually be chaseable.

Along the theme of Sparrows Last Seen in 2010, here's a Clay-colored from Tiscornia.  My spreadsheet shows this to be my 250th bird for St Joseph Twp: