{"id":28738,"date":"2015-01-02T05:51:23","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T12:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=28738"},"modified":"2015-01-02T06:12:47","modified_gmt":"2015-01-02T13:12:47","slug":"white-crowned-sparrow-immatures-and-adults-skewed-populations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/02\/white-crowned-sparrow-immatures-and-adults-skewed-populations\/","title":{"rendered":"White-crowned Sparrow Immatures And Adults – Skewed Populations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve noticed something perplexing (to me at least) about the apparent relative numbers of immature and adult White-crowned Sparrows.<\/p>\n

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\"white-crowned<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Immature (first winter) birds are most easily identified by their brown and buffy head stripes which are in sharp contrast to the…<\/p>\n

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\"white-crowned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1800, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0black and white head stripes of the adult.<\/p>\n

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\"white-crowned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s another look at two juveniles.\u00a0 So, telling the difference in the field between adult and immature birds in winter\u00a0is easy.<\/p>\n

For years I’ve been struck by the fact that I see many, many more young birds than adults.\u00a0 It happened again yesterday morning on Antelope Island.\u00a0 I’d estimate that I saw about 150 White-crowned Sparrows and only one of them was an adult (that I noticed).\u00a0 I’m curious as to why.<\/p>\n

I believe that young birds tend to flock separately from adults but that still doesn’t explain why I see so few adults.\u00a0 I know that many of my readers are more versed in the ways of birds than I am so I’d appreciate any insight\u00a0anyone might have.\u00a0 The answer is likely simple and obvious but it has yet to appear to this sometimes dense bird photographer.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 I couldn’t resist including the following unrelated but interesting event regarding a White-crowned Sparrow.\u00a0 The species is normally found only in North America but in 2008 one lone bird wandered 3000 miles off course and ended up in jolly old England where it created quite a stir.\u00a0 The Brits are crazy about their birds\u00a0so when this unexpected\u00a0migrant landed in the little village of Cley Next The Sea, Norfolk more than 4000 birders (twitchers) showed up to watch its every move.\u00a0 To honor the bird and the event the villagers (with the consent of the Church of England) installed a painting of the bird into one of the stained glass windows of 600 year old St. Margaret’s Church.\u00a0 That\u00a0sparrow is now referred to as a “bird of pray”.<\/em><\/p>\n

More information and photos here<\/a> if you have the interest.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve noticed something perplexing about the apparent relative numbers of immature and adult White-crowned Sparrows.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5,334,350],"tags":[24,2364,2362,2361,768,190,2363,325,1663],"class_list":["post-28738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-white-crowned-sparrows","tag-adult","tag-church-of-england","tag-cley-next-the-sea","tag-england","tag-immature","tag-juvenile","tag-st-margarets-church","tag-white-crowned-sparrow","tag-zonotrichia-leucophrys"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/white-crowned-sparrow-1387-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7tw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}