Id? Sparrows and sandpipers and more (1 Viewer)

[Sage-grouse girl]

I saw these Birds in Wyoming and need help identifying them what do you think?

1: A very blurry bird but you can see the color areas. black and white on the tail, and brown and rufous on the wings. Could it be a McCrown's longspur, or a Meadowlark?


2: Baird's sandpiper?



3: Savannah sparrow?



4: Sage thrasher?


5: Some kind of hawk maybe an immature swainson's hawk?

 

[rkj]

1. Seems like it is distinctive, but I cannot place it.
2. Baird's Sandpiper looks good to me.
3. Savannah Sparrow also looks right.
4. As does Sage Thrasher.
5. Maybe a Ferruginous Hawk.

 

[connorco]

I’m fine with Mccowns for #1. 3 looks like a Vesper sparrow. I agree with @rkjs assessments for the rest.

 

[birdmeister]

The sparrow in #3 shows a very Spizella-like face pattern in my opinion. That, along with such a long tail, make me think Chipping Sparrow. Could be wrong, though, and the cheek looks oddly chestnut-colored for that species. Surely not a juv. Lark Sparrow? That's the only other possibility I can think of.

I can't say what the hawk is in #5, but not Red-tailed for me. Guess that leaves Swainson's and Ferruginous.

 

[pbjosh]

I'll pass on the Longspur, don't see many of them.

For the Sparrow, I don't see a lot of Brewers or Vespers either but the bill looks large and the cheek well defined (outlined in white) for Brewers, to my eye. Just one photo and I'm not an expert but it looks more like Vespers.

The Hawk is definitely a Ferruginous (long thin wings, tail rufous, little comma in the outer wing).

 

[rkj]

The tail on the sparrow does look too long for a Savannah - Vesper may be a better call.

 

[Butty]

5. No dark leading edge to inner part of underwing, so not red-tailed hawk - and shape of outer wing is too narrowed. I don't find anything to match it in books (especially the pale head/upper chest), but I think the subterminal dark tail-band and pale undertail-coverts make it Swainson's hawk.

Ferruginous (long thin wings, tail rufous, little comma in the outer wing)

These things don't preclude Swainson's hawk.

 

[Sage-grouse girl]

When I saw the hawk there was also another Swainson's hawk in the sky which makes me think it could be a Swainson's Also

 

[Sage-grouse girl]

Here's another photo of the Sparrow.

 

[pbjosh]

On the hawk, the dark tail band doesn't preclude juvenile Ferruginous either, fwiw.

But looking at it more, it is an interesting bird - very rufous underneath for a Ferruginous... all the pale morphs I've seen are paler than that at all ages, and dark morphs should be clearly darker, and there aren't meant to be intermediate morphs. But it is also extremely rufous even for the more variable Swainson's juveniles. And that head/chest pattern is like no Swainson's I've ever seen, nor can I find photos like that.

Looking at the wings, 4 vs 5 "fingers" (emarginated primaries) should be diagnostic. But this bird is in wing moult, look to be about 15-16 flight feathers per side. I don't know if Buteo can moult secondaries and primaries at the same time but I'm guessing they can as this bird looks to be doing so. Working with the photo quality and a less than expert knowledge of raptor moult, it looks like the inner primaries are fresh (and darker), it's missing middle primaries, and the outer primaries (which will moult last) are older feathers. So hard to say whether it has 4 vs 5 emarginated primaries. However, the inner primaries growing in dark like that would be in favor of Swainson's. Ferruginous Hawks have only two cycles, juvenile and adult, and in no morph in no age should you have really dark flight feathers.

The pale head could be accounted for by a lot of feather wear / bleaching.

Perhaps it is a Swainson's after all. The more I look at it, the less confident I am.