![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/white-crowned-sparrow-7086-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"white-crowned-sparrow-7086-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWhen it comes to appreciation from humans\u00a0this species\u00a0already has two strikes against it when it steps up to the plate. It’s a sparrow and it’s “common”.<\/p>\n
As far as too\u00a0many folks are concerned\u00a0all sparrows are nondescript little brown birds that might even be the same species so they’re\u00a0worthy of very little attention or even\u00a0respect.\u00a0English\u00a0author and satirist Alan Coren\u00a0had his own take on that shortsighted view\u00a0when he said\u00a0“All I know of birds to this date is that sparrows are the ones that are not pigeons”.<\/p>\n
We’re funny about sparrows. Any bird actually called a sparrow is often largely\u00a0ignored but\u00a0birds with other names of the same size and approximate coloration,\u00a0towhees, buntings and even juncos for example,\u00a0command significantly more\u00a0interest and respect. Well guess what –\u00a0towhees, buntings and juncos are sparrows too! All members of family Emberizidae are types of sparrows.<\/p>\n
And one of the most distinctive and handsome sparrows I regularly photograph is the White-crowned Sparrow, including\u00a0both adults and juveniles which look quite different from each other.\u00a0They’re not\u00a0only widely distributed over almost the entirety of North America but\u00a0they’re also abundant over much of their range and all that boils down to “common”.\u00a0To some that word has negative connotations but in my opinion it shouldn’t.\u00a0In this context it simply means there’s a lot of them over a wide area and I think that’s a positive rather than a negative.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I photographed this adult White-crowned Sparrow\u00a0almost exactly a year ago on Antelope Island and\u00a0it’s perched on blooming rabbitbrush which is among my favorite natural\u00a0perches. These particular\u00a0flowers are a little past their prime so they aren’t as colorful as the flowers in the background producing those\u00a0delightful yellows back there. This is the time of year that rabbitbrush\u00a0yellows are truly glorious, especially when they’re clumped in masses. I just wish birds would perch on them more often when the colors are still bright.<\/p>\n And isn’t this sparrow a handsome specimen, especially with that black and white crown setting him off? In my view there’s absolutely nothing pedestrian about this species, including the immature birds that lack the dramatic black and white head colors. You just have to get close enough, physically or optically, to truly appreciate them.<\/p>\n Sparrows are sometimes referred to as the “Rodney Dangerfields of the bird world” because they get no respect and that’s too bad because folks really don’t know what they’re missing.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it comes to appreciation from humans this species already has two strikes against it when it steps up to the plate. It’s a sparrow and it’s “common”.<\/p>\n