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The Humbling Sparrow



This trip to Fort Fisher seems to have been an exercise in grasping subtle
differences. The other bird which humbled me was a humble sparrow. So,
here goes:
	It was a very finely streaked, sandy colored sparrow with the
streaks on the breast coming together in a very subtle central spot. It
had a white eye-line and median stripe, and a moustache of sorts. the chin
was definitely a pure, unstreaked white. The legs and lower mandible
looked bright yellow to me; but when I look in the field guide (Nat. Geog)
there is no sparrow with yellow legs--they all have flesh-colored legs. It
was hopping about on the sand in the dunes and eating seeds, at one point
it hopped down to the edge of a tidal channel and acted like a swamp
sparrow (but it was not a swampie). The amazing thing about it was the
fineness of the streaking both on its chest and its sides, and its sandy,
almost pearly, color. I wish I had seen it fly and I looked very hard for
white outer tail feathers but saw none. It looks the closest to either a
Vesper sparrow (but as i said I saw no white outer tail feathers)or an
Ipswich sparrow. I wish I had the presence of mind to look for an
eye-ring; I did not and none jumped out at me. 
	Can anyone shed any light on any of this. And also, is the Ipswich
a sub-species of the Savannah. How common are both on the dunes at Fort
Fisher?
	I am trying so-o-o hard to make the 400th bird on my N American
life-list and now it is down to the wire (I have 5 more to go) before the
millenium is over.

A Humbled Birder in search of answers

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SHANTANU PHUKAN
Lecturer in Urdu-Hindi & Indian Literature
University of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Curriculum in Asian Studies
Alumni Hall 413C
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27599

phukan@email.unc.edu
919-962-6825
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