Sunday, November 1, 2015

Clay-colored vs Chipping Sparrow

I had a Clay-colored Sparrow at Tiscornia about a week ago.
 The very pale ground color of the face sets off the markings around the ear patch and contrast nicely with the pale gray collar.
 Clay-colored has a stronger mark along the base of the auricular (ear patch) along the edge of the malar than Chipping.
 There was a young Chipping Sparrow in the same group. 
 The Chipping has a darker ground color to the face without the paler supercilium and midline crown stripe of the Clay-colored.  You can see it really lacks the streak between the auricular and the malar as well.

I can't seem to write about passerines at Tiscornia without a merlin pic.
This was one of the nicer flight shots I've had of one at close range.

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