Chipping Sparrow [Spizella passerina] ~ #58

This summer has been fabulous for getting out and taking pictures. The one downside of taking so many pictures is trying to find the time to go through them and catalog them so that I can find specific pictures down the road. I’ve been to Lillooet a few times over the past month and am now identifying pictures from my trips at the end of June. One of the first places I go is to the Seton Lake lookout and that Saturday afternoon there were a bunch of sparrows hanging out. The White-crowned Sparrows were in the bushes, eating berries and catching bugs. But on the ground there was a cute little sparrow with a rufous crown. When I first started id’ing birds I’d get stumped a lot by the Sparrows, but I think I’m figuring it out. According to the All About Birds website the Chipping Sparrow has a rufous head with a black stripe through it’s eye. It could be mistaken for a Tree Sparrow, who differs in that he has a rufous stripe through it eye (as well as a spot on it’s chest and multi-coloured beak).

Over that weekend I saw a few Chipping Sparrows hanging out at the Upper Spawning Channel, where I spend lots of time trying to get shots of the Spotted Towhees, the Osprey family, Cedar Waxwings and the elusive Warblers. (Not to mention the Kingfisher that lead me on a wild “goose” chase last year, the Harlequin duck family, Marmots and even a river otter once!)