| Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of Uth WESTERN SAVANNA SPARROW By Harry Aldous NOTES ON OTHER NATIVE SPARROWS As weed destroyers the native sparrows are In a garden within two months they will sometimes destroy 90 per cent of weeds as pigeon grass and seed forms more than half of their food for the entire The song lark and grasshopper sparrows are replaced in winter by and tree four-fifths of whose food consists of weed Most of the seed eaters are looked upon with and are erroneously likened to the English whereas few groups of birds are of more real benefit to the agriculturist than the native have several common species with us in the and more in the In the winter season they are assisted in their work of cleaning up the weed seeds in the farmer's fields by several species The Vesper Sparrow of which come down here from farther The are frequently called The appetites of the seed eaters are particularly good in cold weather and the number of seeds eaten in a single day is often enormous sometimes over a as reported by Judd of the Department of The following account of one of this group is derived from the valuable notes taken in the field by Harry The Western Savanna While walking through the Salt Grass meadows west of Salt Lake City early last it was my good fortune to flush a very streaky brown which looked more like a field mouse than a bird as it through the I readily identified it as the western savannah a bird rather rare in this but common further A search in the grass under my feet revealed the and what surprised me for a moment was the which were so large and heavily blotched with chocolate brown that I thought I had mistaken the Very soon I recognized them as eggs of the there were four of and they completely filled the small I removed and found at the bottom of the nest a full set of five eggs of the rightful wonder the nest was The sparrow eggs were beautifully chiefly at the larger with spots and blotches of reddish brown and lavender gray over a ground color of greenish They averaged in size about resembling very closely the eggs of the mountain song only The Cowbird The a flimsy in slight was placed a on the ground and completely concealed by the salt It was built of dry grasses and lined with fine grass and a few I destroyed the cowbirds' as it seemed to me a wrong on the part of nature to impose four parasitic eggs upon this little while its own must have Being at the bottom of the nest and under the cowbird 's they could not have I am glad that I came along and righted leaving the rightful owners in undisputed I in undisturbed This is the only instance in my rambles afield that I have ever found four cowbird 's eggs in another bird's and after a careful search of the surrounding pasture had failed to reveal another nest of any I came to the conclusion that this was the only nest in this immediate and the too lazy to leave its feeding grounds ami the numerous cows pasturing imposed her whole burden upon this little Size and This sparrow is readily identified by its grayish streaked with brown also the pale yellow line before and over the eye the bend of the It is one of the smallest of our being only five and one-half inches Its flight is zig-zag as it flits along close to the flying only a few yards before- The song of the male is weak and unmusical a soft trill or ending with a short which it utters from the ground or from the top of a tall This bird arrives in Utah late in The nesting season is May and and two broods are reared in a incubation lasts ten The young are fed upon small insects and which are numerous in these salt grass The Song The song sparrows were more fully described in a former They breed shifting south in The canary-like song entitles this species to its It prefers bushes along but it often frequents the shrubbery near houses in company with the worthless English It is mainly a consumer of weed seeds I also a taste for fruit and a little besides many noxious insects y f much more good than is fully entitled to the ai j 1 These sweet singers adapt J selves to all sorts of climate 5 food For thou may not think them pw from their rather eJ I their habit of spend much time m river brush t never gathering in great j like some of their kin 9 they are one of the few J that have everywhere f rather than By middle of March the winter soS sparrows will have taken 2 for the and from that until well into April the residents will come Mt f but one or two at a tin appearing near the old j April is probably the he f time to hear the most unguarded song of the s as they do not to nest until early no necessity for secrecy of moS ment or choice of singing perch The Nest and I song sparrow nest with the greatest in the mazes of a low in division of the branches of a just above the where r of bark and dry leaves hare col or on the ground itself jj tween grass tussocks that not oi i conceal the but ere soi times woven in with the plant fibers and shredded r which the nest is Lj the chipping it uses horsehair for an inner linta and the four or five bluish J profusely marked with rt dish are always soft J bedded by fine According ta j j is ne i western song sparrow the most abundant of the resident in the fertile parts of J Great When first H he the peculiar measure a delivery of its song at once tracts Softer of the eastern and m ent in it runs f r with the and There pause after the first syllable-Jf J. rap second to fifth following but a pause betwee and the which to in a fine metallic Sh a rising and the whole terminating ab- Jan entirely different from pother the r Three Forms in 4 desert song which I I found mostly in our far south-l gs is light rufous in J the upper parts light J peaked on the back with rusty J fed on the chest with clear rusty mountain song the m form over most of the v has its upper parts grayish 1 Sd streaked with black or a fee under parts are the Sest and sides streaked with the streaks more or less influent on the Its wings tr ad tail are the bird more and more than the eastern Merrill Song Merrill song sparrow has Hoik olive upper but with If b ashy dark well dj especially on the e white of the under parts is Jear and The Merrill Rightly darker than the moun- tain song and is more f in color It breeds of Utah and migrates to us m colder lir-P is a bird of the higher resembling the song but with a buffy chest finely penciled brown olive and finely With brown lower f chest and sides sides and broad buffy band narrowly streaked th These birds' seem to writer excessively I seen them in the great wil- J Patches bordering mountain where they widen out fassy places filled with an 7 The only call I have f the song al Said have Vesper vesper sparrow E iH m April and remains K Tt its nest ft and e three to f or brownish spotted or streaked with brown and are early in It is a common summer resident on the hills about Salt Lake valley and of most other places in the Great As it its white outer tail feathers are plainly and serve to identify It abounds in sage brush and is commonly seen on It is a brownish gray and much streaked bird the bend of the wing is the are dull tinged with pale It has longer wings and tail than the eastern species and has more It is a fine Its which I have often especially near the hour of has a rich resembling that of the song but finer and opens with one low says by two higher while the song sparrow begins with three notes all of the same The vesper does like many sing between the mouthfuls of a but devotes half an hour at a time to perched in the branches of a He is fond of open and keeps among the grass and with which his gray and dusky so closely harmonize that he seems to disappear into the These lively and spirited birds are at home in the broad and with several pairs of song made pleasant companions for the writer all last summer about the State Normal school Ves per sparrows are highly insectivorous that their food consists more largely of insects than that of most other Their work as insect destroyers is very and they prefer caterpillars and Large quantities of weed chiefly pigweed and are eaten by sometimes with a trifling amount of mostly gleaned from stubble The value of the vesper sparrow to the farmer is beyond and should secure for this bird the fullest The Baird This is a rare species in according to In North Dakota it is common in low depressions of the where the high grass has been left it breeds thereabouts and migrates But in Currant thirty miles east of I conclude that I have seen it several times in always in single but could not place because of its dark and spotted It has a yellowish or brown head with black throat bordered by black sides and flanks streaked with tail deeply It was always on the when I saw picking up either seeds or It seemed to be a good Its' breast are similar to those of the eastern fox i |
