[PONYRCR]

I set out for Sand Dune Park in hopes of seeing the Varied Thrushes that had been reported there. Happy to say I saw both a male and female.

Found a few other new birds that I need help ID'ing and one confirmation.

First bird I'm pretty sure is a White-throated Sparrow.

Second bird is some other type of Thrush. It was spotted serveral times in the company of Rufus-sided Towee's. First pic is more then a bit blurry, second is a fairly decent shot of the back of the bird. I'm guessing Hermit Thrush.

Third is some little bird. Small bushtit sized bird. But I don't think it's a bushtit. It was a busy flitting little bird. I was lucky to get any shots of it.

[Andrew Whitehouse]

1. White-throated Sparrow
2. Hermit Thrush
3. Fox Sparrow
4&5. Ruby-crowned Kinglet

[teircel]

The third bird looks like a Fox Sparrow and the last bird is a Ruby Crowned Kinglet. I believe you nailed the 1st two.

[Jeff hopkins]

Andrew got 'em all.

[Gentoo]

I agree with the above. White-Throats aren't the commnest winter birds in California either

[waka waka]

So is there 3 or 4 birds? I thought the 2nd and 3rd pictures were the same bird.

[kgbpasha]

Yeah, I don't see the Fox Sparrow. I too am a believer that there are only 3 species in these pics. Sparrow,Thrush,Kinglet. Am I missing something?

[Garrett Lau]

I understand the confusion. As recently as last month, I misidentified a Fox Sparrow as a Hermit Thrush, but now that I've studied them, I can tell the difference. #3 is a Fox Sparrow. It has too much red on the wings and streaking on the flanks to be a Hermit Thrush.

[AlexC]

Perhaps I'm reading the color scheme wrong, but this (pressumed to be from Cali) Fox Sparrow is showing some weird Eastern features. First of all, it's red. And not only that, it's got the red crown&auricular pattern good for Red (Taiga) Fox Sparrow. It's also got whitish edges to it's tertials. It also seems to (underneath the wings) have a gray rump, but it DOESN'T, however, have the expected (on a Red Fox Sparrow) white wingbars (EDIT: on second look, there are wingbars there, but they are extremely faint and narrow), NOR does it have the mantle pattern of "distinctly streaked rufous and gray" (I quote Sibley) that is shown in these pics from the gallery:

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1

Is this bird weird or is it just me? Could it be a Slate-colored x Red intergrade?

BTW, agree with all other IDs (2 is definitely a different bird and a Hermit Thrush)

[PONYRCR]

Originally Posted by waka waka

So is there 3 or 4 birds? I thought the 2nd and 3rd pictures were the same bird.

Me too.

When I took the pictures I thought I was getting a Thrush. When I first arrived at the park I saw the Spotted Towhee and what I thought was a Thrush together. Of course they promptly flew off.

Later I saw them together again. This time they stayed put and I was able to get a few pictures.

But after looking at the replies and looking closer at pic #3 the bird in 3 has streaking on it's breast, and the bird in pic #2 has a clear breast.

[AlexC]

Originally Posted by PONYRCR

But after looking at the replies and looking closer at pic #3 the bird in 3 has streaking on it's breast, and the bird in pic #2 has a clear breast.

Flanks, I'm sure you mean (I know some would say it's semantics and doesn't matter, but it's important that those learning from this thread don't get facts mixed up). Both have breast markings (as long as we're talking about what is anatomically referred to as a bird's "breast"), though Hermit Thrush's is darkish spots/blotches that trail off (this feature can be variable in how far it trails off):

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/...cat/all/page/1

...while Fox Sparrow has more arrow-like streaking that becomes less distinct into the flanks (see Fox Sparrow photos in above post). For other reasons why they aren't the same bird, see my list of supporting features for Red Fox Sparrow - many make it impossible for bird3 to be Hermit Thrush.

[Jeff hopkins]

Irish makes an interesting point. I quickly jumped on fox sparrow but he's right that it looks like our subspecies here in the east, not the ones seen in California, though I'm not sure the weaker rufous coloring isn't just an artifact of the liqghting in the photo.

How common is the red fox sparrow in SoCal? I know they're found into northern Alaska. Could this be a vagrant from that population?

[AlexC]

Originally Posted by Jeff hopkins

How common is the red fox sparrow in SoCal? I know they're found into northern Alaska. Could this be a vagrant from that population?

From Cornell's Birds of North America Online:

Red Fox Sparrow (iliaca group) winters principally east of the Great Plains from se. Minnesota, s. Wisconsin, s. Michigan, southernmost Ontario, central Pennsylvania, se. New York, n. Massachusetts, s. New Hampshire, coastal Maine, coastal New Brunswick (very rare), coastal Nova Scotia (local), and coastal s. Newfoundland (local) south to eastern half of Texas, s. Louisiana, s. Mississippi, s. Alabama, and n. Florida. Small numbers also winter in the Pacific Coastal Region (rare), principally in interior from Washington south to nw. Baja California. Winters irregularly farther north and west of main range in e. North America and rarely to s. Florida. Casual or very local in interior California, s. Arizona, s. New Mexico, and Sonora, Mexico (Russell and Lamm 1978, Rising 1996, Am. Ornithol. Union 1998, Garrett et al. 2000, Christmas Bird Count [CBC] data), but occasionally observed elsewhere in central and w. North America, including Wainwright and the Barrow region of Alaska and on Banks I., Nunavut (Garrett et al. 2000), north of its breeding distribution.

[AlexC]

Bump. Are we set on a Red Fox Sparrow that's lost? Anyone?

EDIT: Happy, my modest friend?

[B Lagopus]

Er, um, I don't think that my name should be in the same line with Chris B when it comes to knowledge of western Fox Sparrow subspecies. It is a tough area, lots of clinal variation, intergrades and overlaps, and often impossible to resolve.

Purely for the sake of speculation and idle discussion, I reckon that Passerella iliaca altivagans would be a reasonable possibility for this bird. The overall duller red than the nominate subspecies group, predominately gray auriculars with reddish borders, very narrow wing bars and partial tertial edging, and kind of washed out gray back with dull and indistinct reddish streaking could all fit with this western subspecies. It is intermediate between Red and Slate-colored, but is considered a subspecies, rather than merely an intergrade as you speculated, though it also intergrades. This is the subspecies that Sibley illustrates as "Adult Canadian Rocky Mountains" and labels as "one of the most confusing populations" (and Nat Geo calls it "problematic"). Which, since we are talking about Fox Sparrow subspecies, is really saying something...