LeConte’s Sparrow at TNC’s Pontotoc Ridge Preserve 15 May 2008
Posted by eatmorecookies in birding, birds/nature, environment, life.trackback
On the last day of the OOS Spring Meeting and Arbuckle/Simpson Nature Festival, TNC’s Jona Tucker led us on a tour of the Pontotoc Ridge Preserve north of Tishomingo, OK. Andy and I didn’t have time to stick around for the whole tour, but we still got to tromp around through a beautiful area of the state with forest, prairie, rock outcrops, and springs all concentrated in this one place. Very nice.
The highlight for me was finding a couple of lingering LeConte’s Sparrows in a tallgrass meadow and getting in close enough for a few mediocre photos. We flushed a Sedge Wren from the same meadow, but strangely, nothing else.
Check out the warm ochre wash of the breat contrasting with the clean, white belly on this bird. At close range, the gray nape with reddish streaks takes on a purplish or mauve color. This is simply a lovely little bird, and all birders in the southern plains should take some time to try and flush them from tallgrass patches in which they might be wintering. I still haven’t encountered them on their breeding grounds, so I’ve never heard one sing. Someday . . .
The bird was doing a rapid wing flick and tail twitch as I worked in closer for a photo.
I think its really cool that Sedge Wrens and LeConte’s Sparrows seem to occur together so regularly in both breeding and winter habitat. At Seney while doing Yellow Rail surveys/tours I would flush dozens of both species while slogging through the marsh and almost no other species (once in awhile a swamp sparrow or yellowthroat if I was near the edge of the sedge meadow or in a patch with a lot of bog birch), and probably close to half the time I have seen one or the other species in Oklahoma I have seen the other in the same spot. I guess just very similar habitat requirements for both species across their entire range.