As my foot is still recovering from the nail incident I’m unable to do a lot of walking for birding so a birdie friend and I just poked around the mudflats near the gun club at Rainbow Haven beach.
Right away we heard a lifer for both of us, the Nelson’s Sparrow. Turns out they are nosey little birds and 3 of them flew around and gave us a little show. Their song is really strange and you won’t mistake them for anything else once you know it. Well not really true, they are actually very similar to the Salt Marsh Sparrow.
And to make it worse, they sometimes interbreed:
https://aba.org/nab/v65n2sparrows.pdf
Perhaps I should contact Jim Edsall for ID help he’s usually right!
Even out of focus you can see the bright colouring on this little one and how nicely they blend into the marsh colours.
Nelson’s Sparrow
There are always a bunch of Savannah Sparrows down there and sometimes Ipswich. They can be tough to tell apart sometimes so I’m not certain of the ones I photographed.
Savannah Sparrow
My guess is that these could be juvenile Savannah Sparrows but ID help would be appreciated.
juvenile sparrow not sure which type
At times it can seem disappointing when you go birding and all you see are sparrows, but they are pretty neat when you start identifying all the different ones. We should also never take for granted the pretty sound of a Song Sparrow.
On the little causeway on the way out we noticed some baby Willets which are simply adorable.
baby Willet
Willet parent
You really don’t have to far in Nova Scotia to have a great birding experience, we are lucky for sure.