bird id help, please...

[forestgnome]

This bird was foraging on the ground in the trail near the height-of-land on the Rocky Branch Trail

Thanks for any help

 

[cooperhill]

Snow Bunting

 

[forestgnome]

Thanks! Just googled that and found this

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Snow_Bunting.html
looks like the male in nonbreeding plumage

 

[sardog1]

If he was alone, he's either got the hermit thrush gene by mistake or he was cast out for some misdeed. They're almost always in small flocks. And they're a nifty seasonal harbinger of things to come, BTW (cf. my avatar . . . )

 

[forestgnome]

If he was alone, he's either got the hermit thrush gene by mistake or he was cast out for some misdeed. They're almost always in small flocks. And they're a nifty seasonal harbinger of things to come, BTW (cf. my avatar . . . )

Yeah, yeah, rub it in, snow-lover .......

I'm enjoying a bare-ground November, so far...

The bunting was definately alone because he kept pace with me along the trail for about 15 minutes and a few hundred feet, and no sightings of any others.

happy autumn

 

[prino]

Not 100% sure, but the nearest I could find with those distinctive brown markings and white wing bar is this...American Tree Sparrow

 

[Puck]

I h ad a solitary snow bunting this past weekend. I thought it was very odd. Mean while there flocks of siskins flying around.

When the Snow buntings show up the horned larks are not to far behind.

BTW I had my first tree sparrow...one of the earliest.

 

[audrey]

The biggest snow bunting flock I ever saw was around the Sugarloaf gondola building last March. They were pretty tame, with skiers and snowshoers coming and going.

 

[prino]

So I guess I'm alone in thinking it's a Tree sparrow?

 

[forestgnome]

So I guess I'm alone in thinking it's a Tree sparrow?

The birders here think it's a sb, so I'll go with that, but it also does resemble the pic in your link. The bird was slightly larger than a sparrow, and the size and shape is overall more like the bunting. Thanks for the link.

 

[cooperhill]

No question in my mind that this is a snow bunting.

I'd say the white color of the bird, esp. the underside (which is clearly shown by FGs pictures) ids this as a snow bunting. Also the sb's brown marking on the head and face are very distinctive.

Thanks FG for the great pictures.

 

[Puck]

That much white mean is can only be a snow nunting.

Tree sparrows have the typical sparrow coloring. They have a clear breast with one spot in the center, some call it a stick pin. The cornell link doesn't show that. Tree sparrows are also in large flocks throughout thier winter range.