Birders like to count and classify. It is worse than baseball. There is a name and statistic for everything.
Even, it seems, that which cannot be named.
You know what I am talking about. You are out with friends when a dull flash darts from one hedge to another. Someone cries, "Look!" and everyone else says, "What was it?" Rather than appear uneducated, the Master Birder replies "Why! It was an LBJ!"
LBJ (little brown job) and LBB (little brown bird) are the birder's friend. If it is small, dull and moves too quickly to be positively identified, then it is an LBJ.
This brings us to small and dull. For you see, very few of the unidentified birds are actually dull.
Take for example, the much-dismissed Song sparrow. You are likely to see a Song sparrow in one of two places - on a twig, reed or cattail singing its' marvelous song, or down on the ground, scratching in the leaf litter. You may also see it as it flits from one area of covered brush to another.
Because the Song sparrow spends a large amount of time near or on the ground, it needs to protect itself from predators. The Song sparrow's ornately patterned grey, brown and beige plumage gives it perfect camouflage as it roots around among the leaves and twigs. Its' striped chest makes it blend well with the vertical stripes of grasses and small branches.
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| Even the Song sparrow's Latin name is cool - Melospiza melodia |
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| You have to look closely and quickly to see the reddish-brown back of the Chestnut-backed chickadee |
Sometimes those little, ordinary birds are not the ones we thought they were.
Chestnut-backed chickadees are a Pacific Northwest specialty. Audubon calls them the most colorful of the chickadees. They thrive in the damp forests of Pacific coastal areas. A good place to look for Chestnut-backed chickadees is in large, native conifers, whose bark is the same color (and provides camouflage for) the bird's chestnut-colored back.
At 3.9 - 4.7 inches, the Chestnut-backed chickadee is a full inch smaller than the ubiquitous Black-capped chickadee. Truly a LBJ!
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| Even the common American robin is an exciting sighting when you see it in the dewy grass |
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