Chipping Sparrow on wild rose, Box Elder County, UtahChipping Sparrow on wild rose – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1000, ISO 1000, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

Last week was hard on me on a personal level and out in the field with birds and animals and this week will be challenging too but at least we are supposed to get some rain finally and maybe that will help out the firefighters with the wildfires that are still raging in Utah. A fire up near Mirror Lake blew up over the weekend because of the high winds and the photos I saw in the news of the fire were alarming. The Mirror Lake highway is such a beautiful, scenic trip and now I wonder what it will look like once the fire is out. Anyway, I just don’t feel like I have much oomph this morning so I am keeping my post simple.

I photographed this nonbreeding Chipping Sparrow the last week of September as it perched briefly on a wild rose, I love the pop of color the rose hips provided.

This time of the year I try to look carefully at every Chipping Sparrow I see in the hopes of finding a Clay-colored Sparrow which aren’t common in Utah because these two species can look alike and Clay-colored Sparrows are migrating to their wintering grounds, at least one has been spotted here that I know of this fall. So far I haven’t found one but if I am persistent and keep a keen eye out perhaps I will.

The bill of this nonbreeding Chipping Sparrow in my photo is pink with just a hint of black at the top of the bill, I find it interesting that while this species is in breeding plumage their bills turn black when their cap turns a bright rufous.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Chipping Sparrow photos plus facts and information about this species.