The Big Sit, Part 3

Camped comfortably in a Big Sit I noticed a flash of orange in the meadow. I assumed it must be a migrating warbler. As is often the case, stalks of spent wildflowers prevented my camera from auto-focusing. I tipped the tripod to its side so that it functioned as a less stable but more maneuverable monopod and found the bird in the viewfinder. Amazingly I was granted a full 5 seconds to get the picture before the bird disappeared.

LeConte's Sparrow

With all that goes on in such a photographic moment I often don't have an accurate sense in the field of what the bird looks like. That comes later in reviewing the images on the computer screen. But I was pretty sure this orange creature would be interesting.

Back home I downloaded the files. The bird had a conical seed-eating sparrow beak rather than the slim pointed bill of an insectivorous warbler. It's coloration and markings weren't like anything I'd ever seen. Field guides offered a couple of possibilities associated with salt marshes‒entirely the wrong habitat‒or with Midwestern prairies. I compared the photograph to online references and consulted a local expert who deemed it "a very good bird," meaning unexpected in this area. It was a LeConte's Sparrow.

Further investigations through the internet revealed what a lucky sighting if was. Cornell University's All About Birds site poetically described its behavior. "Famously elusive and stubbornly stealthy, the pumpkin-faced LeConte’s Sparrow acts more like a mouse than a bird. This short-tailed, flat-headed sparrow breeds in marshy areas of North America's great grasslands. It spends much of its time foraging on the ground for seeds and insects, often scurrying rather than flying away from danger." My subject not only popped up visibly but maintained eye contact for several seconds. Who knows what it was doing in the neighborhood, judging by Cornell's range map.

Expected range of LeConte's Sparrow

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website

You might say that the Big Sit approach is both challenged and vindicated in the following blog entry at the Bird Watching Academy.

The LeConte’s Sparrow is a difficult bird to see well, and almost never breaks cover. Much of the breeding range is remote, so your best opportunity to find one is on its wintering grounds. Look for them by walking through dense wet meadows...and watch for anything that flushes, or better yet, pops up on top of a piece of grass for a brief moment, before disappearing again into the vegetation.

A productive Big Sit means staying quietly alert but not passive.

 My good fortune is underscored in the "Cool Facts" section of Cornell's essay on LeConte's Sparrow.

The LeConte's Sparrow is famously elusive. It stays hidden in dense grass, often running along the ground rather than flying. They're so hard to find and track that, although the species was officially described in 1790, it took scientists nearly 100 years longer to find and describe the first nest.

Bit by bit the meadow is revealing its secrets.