nm birds 2 [song sparrow. probably.]

i was being lazy when i petitioned you all to identify the birds in my next few posts. i never even attempted to look them up; i couldn't make an educated guess when glancing briefly at the photos, so i put the burden on you.

and that's shameful, really. i'm not like that. i have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, especially when it comes to nature. i normally can't spend enough time researching birds or turtles or lizards or spiders… the list goes on. so what's happening? am i getting old? losing my passion, my drive? well, after some quick soul searching, i decided to chalk it up to laziness. pure, good ol' fashioned, 100%, grade-a, premium cut laziness.

and for that, i apologize.

so for this next post, i took a stab at identifying this on my own. i don't know my sparrows very well; only enough to know that's what i would start my search with. my first stop for bird id is always allaboutbirds.org, run by the cornell lab of ornithology. in less than a minute, i came up with my assumption: song sparrow. please let me know if i am off.

(click the picture for a larger version)

if you look closely at these next two shots, you can see that he has some sort of caterpillar in his beak.

(click the picture for a larger version)

(click the picture for a larger version)

i keep referring to it as "he." i assume this because its behavior suggests that of a male. song sparrows typically forage on the ground or low in bushes, doing their best to keep out of sight. males will flit out onto exposed branches to sing, which is what this one was doing. i heard him before i saw him; in fact, that's how i found him — by following his song.