This winter I partook in leading the California Young Birders Club on an overnight trip to the High Desert to see some of the unique and rare species found there. Every birding trip has some sort of “target” species, or the birds you want to see the most. While you can target every ABA area rarity on this list, the chance of you seeing all, if any, is extremely slim. The birds we found were, perhaps not ABA level rarities, but birds people had been searching for for over a century which made them pretty special.
The Sage Sparrow is a bird that doesn’t exist to science anymore. It’s been split into two different species, Bell’s and Sagebrush Sparrow. Both species are extremely similar, with only minor differences in plumage and song. Bell’s are by far the more common out of the pair in the High Desert in winter. Sagebrush Sparrows, on the other hand, are not extremely common. In fact, Los Angeles County, where the majority of our trip took place, only had one accepted record from almost a hundred years ago, with three or four modern records that had been up for a while but not formally accepted. In the leadup to the trip our entire group, me especially, had joked about seeing Sagebrush Sparrows. Well, soon we were in for a surprise.
Before we get to talking about some special sparrows, it’s important to understand what makes Sagebrush Sparrows so hard to identify and document properly. Plumage wise, there are only minor differences between Bell’s and Sagebrush Sparrows. The malar on Sagebrush is thinner and lighter colored, barely reaching the bill. On the back of the bird, there’s thick black streaking that follows all the way up the back almost to the nape. The bird’s head is toned a light gray. Bell’s Sparrows are essentially the opposite of this. Dark, thick, malar, light streaking that doesn’t follow all the way up the back, and a darker slate gray color on the head. As if plumage differences didn’t make it hard enough, their behavior makes it even worse. Sage Sparrows in general are extremely hard to get close too. They are skittish, don’t like to perch up, and absolutely love hanging out in the bottom of bushes completely out of view from any eye. Just getting an unobstructed look at one is great, it’s even worse trying to get photos that actually show every I.D. mark. In the event one finds a singing bird, there’s the fight to get close enough to the bird to record audio, the ever present wind, and the fact that the bird simply might not even sing long enough for one to get any usable audio. In short, it takes about a miracle to get a confident I.D. of a Sagebrush Sparrow, and an act of the bird gods to get good enough photos to have it be confirmed.
Our group woke up an hour before sunrise and marched out into the desert. I led the hushed group along the path as the sky lightened from black to blue. Every quarter or mile or so we stopped to listen in the hopes of hearing just one Bell’s Sparrow. Eventually, after about three stops I heard a singing bird. I got the group on it and we all attempted to approach, but the bird took off as soon as it spotted us. We made the decision to split up, Aaron attempting to see them by himself, Cadeo and I together, and Aashay and Luca in a team. We each ventured our own ways in an attempt to find birds. After around 15 minutes Cadeo and I got on a bird, and seeing Aaron wandering hopelessly in the distance, beckoned him closer. We all crept towards the bird, cameras poised, waiting for it to hop up. Of course, it did for about half a second before following one of its friends to the next bush. We did this routine for about an hour following the birds through the desert. Eventually we came upon a larger mixed flock of sparrows consisting of Bell’s, Brewer’s, and Gambel’s Sparrows. We had reached a point where the sun was facing our backs but had not risen over a butte that was also behind us. We found a couple more cooperative Bell’s Sparrows and began following them as they hopped from bush to bush foraging. A minute or two after the sun had risen over the butte we came upon a pair of Sage Sparrows sitting exposed near the top of a bush. Aaron and Cadeo were looking at a Bell’s Sparrow on the left side of the bush and yelling at me to get on it. I said, “What do you mean it’s on the left side of the bush? It’s perched up on the right!” I looked to the left, they looked to the right, and we saw each other’s birds. Aaron immediately noted how dapper my bird looked, and I couldn’t help but admit how true it was. As I watched through my viewfinder while snapping pics I kept thinking how pale the bird looked compared to the other Bell’s Sparrows around it. I chalked it up to the sunlight that had just poured over the Butte brightening everything up. After both sparrows moved on to another bush we thought about following them for a bit but decided on heading back. Afterall, we had been out for over two hours and still wanted to hit other hotspots during the day. We all reconvened at camp happy with our views and our birds.
As I was in the car driving away from camp I couldn’t help but wonder a little bit more about that one “Sage” Sparrow I had spotted. I had felt unsure enough about it to leave it as a slash on the checklist with a note saying that we would review our photos. As I looked at them on the back of my camera I couldn’t help thinking how good the bird looked for Sagebrush Sparrow. I grabbed a couple pics of the back of the camera with my phone and texted them out with a simple, “This look good for SABS?” to a couple friends. The response was unanimously and almost immediately yes. As we got out of the car at our next spot I began showing my pics to the others in our group and everyone started to get a little excited. After we nailed some Red Crossbills we all sat down for lunch and I looked at the Sage Sparrow pics even more, comparing them to some sketches of the local “Cancencs” subspecies of Bell’s Sparrow. We all started getting a little hyped up, but were also a little apprehensive because the only other confirmed Sagebrush Sparrow record for L.A. County was from almost a hundred years ago and was a collected bird. I decided as soon as I got home I would download the pics and send them to two people: Kimball Garrett, the local eBird reviewer, and Chris Mcreedy, one of the world’s top Sagebrush Sparrow experts.
Almost immediately I got a response from Chris Mcreedy – a perfect Sagebrush Sparrow. Quickly I hit everyone in the group with messages. We all were freaking out and super excited. A few minutes later, Aashay, who had teamed up with Luca, found a bird in his photos that looked good for Sagebrush. Another message was sent to Chris, and another reply with, yes that bird looks good for Sagebrush. However, the real answer and confirmation would come from Kimball Garret, the eBird reviewer.
As I awaited his response I went ahead and posted the bird to eBird writing:
We encountered this bird moving with a somewhat loose flock of Bells and White -crowned Sparrows. I (Max) spotted it first, and I grabbed photos while alerting Aaron to the bird, who then got Cadeo on it. At first we all thought it was just a rather dapper looking BESP, and didn’t put a ton of thought into it as we were focused on photographing it. After the bird flew off (according to time stamps on my photos I had it in view for a little more than a minute, around ~1:05) we continued moving as we needed to head back to camp. I had suspected it had been something weird, so I left it as “Sage Sparrow” and decided to review pics later. I had sent the pics to a couple different folk and even without telling them I thought it could be a Sagebrush, I got remarks saying how good it looked for one. As we looked at the bird even more, the more it looked like a Sagebrush. Now, confirmed reports of Sagebrush are essentially nonexistent in the county, (Last confirmed on ebird is from the 1930s and it was a specimen), but we feel that our photos and views were good enough to call our bird one. Additionally, as this was part of a California Young Birders Club Meeting, we had another separate group (Luca and Aashay) who had two other birds that looked good for Sagebrush shortly after us ( It was not the same bird due to distance from sightings; they were almost a mile away from us and they saw their bird only a minute or two after we got on ours). Follows is the description of the sparrow:
This sparrow was smaller than the White-crowned Sparrows it was close too. It was about the same size as the Bells Sparrow it was perched about five feet away from (In the same bush). It was perched on top of the bush in full sunlight. The sun had just come up over the Butte behind us, but it wasn’t excessively “golden,” so it shouldn’t have altered the colors the bird appeared. The bird’s head, parts of face, and some of its nape were a pale, plain gray coloring. It had a white eye ring, with a slight darker gray spot in front of its eye. Above and to the front of its eye it had a white patch which crossed its forehead. Two small black lines crossed the white forehead vertically, each coming from either side of the bill. Moving lower in the face, the cheek patch, the same color as previously mentioned, although it slightly got darker as it reached the edge, formed a downward “hook” shape, forming a large white colored gap between the cheek and malar. The malar itself was light and narrow, starting from the shoulder. It started somewhat thick, although not as much as I’d expect on a Bells type sparrow. The malar, as it moved up the face, became subsequently lighter in color and thinner, barely reaching the bottom-side of the bill. This pattern was represented on both sides of the face. The under sides of the bird were white transitioning to tan as they moved towards the sides of the bird, with streaking on either side. I did not get a good observation of the chest spot, but I could make out that it was there from a couple angles. The back of the bird was tan. It had distinct streaks moving down from just below the nape where the bird transitioned to tan. The streaks formed a downward ”V” streak. Each streak was staggered moving either slightly to the left or right beneath the other depending on which side of the back they are. They were very dark, more than any Bells Sparrow I have seen before and were much higher up on the back itself. The rump was clean tan, and the tail beneath it a dark brown. The edges of some retrices were a lighter tan similar to the body color of the bird.
Sagebrush Sparrow are probably largely underreported in L.A. County in general. Not many people are crazy enough to get up in 30 degree weather and trek out into the desert to try and find them. In consideration of finding this bird: We followed the trail from the campground probably a mile out, but the bird was a ways off the trail to the Northeast. I can only imagine that you would have to have a remarkable streak of luck to find this bird. That said – There are almost certainly more of these out there. I state it again, Luca and Aashay’s group had two other SABS ( https://ebird.org/checklist/S158936198 ) Saddleback Butte State Park is only a few miles from known historic SABS wintering grounds, it makes sense that birds might be there. My only tip for finding them: Take Photos! We wouldn’t have been able to ID this bird without the photos we got. In that regard, pics are attached.
Cadeo also went ahead and posted the bird on the listserv and the L.A. County discord. I figured if we had the backup of Chris Mcreedy we would be good to alert others. Later the next day I got a response from Kimball:
Hi Aaron, Max, and Cadeo,
Sorry, not to have responded earlier. I have been swamped with NAB and CBRC work, among other things. I was reminded of your query when Cadeo made his post to LACoBirds today.
When we did our “Great Sagebrush Sparrow Hunt” a couple of winters ago we felt like we ran up against a brick wall with lots of “inbetween” looking birds as well as some good Sagebrush Sparrow candidates that didn’t quite have the ideal camera angles. Before Chris McCreedy’s LAB talk in a couple of weeks I plan to work with the other L A County eBird reviewers to make a decision on how to treat the best Sagebrush candidates (none of which have been confirmed in eBird at this point). I can tell you that there are 3-4 individuals (at least) that we are likely to confirm as Sagebrush, with one or two of those supported by song recordings as well as good photos. Confirming these would put us more in line with the treatment of this species in adjacent counties. To those few acceptable records I would certainly add your bird from Saddleback Butte — the photo angles are sufficient to confirm that long, sharp black streaks continue all the way across the back of the bird. This, in combination with the weak malar that peters out before the bill is about as good a set of morphological evidence as we can have without the bird in the hand.
Just for your entertainment, this eBird list has my personal best candidate for Sagebrush Sparrow in the Antelope Valley
I trust we’ll all learn more after Chris’s talk and in a few more winters we’ll probably have a real understanding of the status of Sagebrush Sparrow in Los Angeles County.
Best,
KImball
Needless to say, we were all ecstatic. With the way the email started off I was terrified that our bird would be ditched for a lack of audio or looking too in between. Luckily for us, our photos showed the bird well enough for a substantial I.D. Not but a few minutes later, I got a message from Luca with two more photos of a potential Sagebrush. Again, a quick message to Chris Mcreedy and yet again, a yes. For a county that had only one prior accepted record of Sagebrush Sparrow that wasn’t even modern, all of a sudden three had been found in one morning. Essentially, everyone in the group had found or seen a MEGA. This joy added to the incredible time we all had camping and birding together.
The importance of these finds is probably not even really known yet. However, we can speculate that we have likely found a reliable overwintering location for Sagebrush Sparrows in Los Angeles County. As more coverage happens in more upcoming years there is hope to get an understanding of what the Sagebrush Sparrow’s range and distribution is actually like. Hopefully this can lead to meaningful conservation of a threatened species. Sagebrush habitats are increasingly being destroyed throughout the southwest. From the destruction of Joshua Trees to build housing in more suburban areas, to cattle grazing and ranching, desert habitat is often undervalued and ignored for the importance it has for many species, especially Sagebrush Sparrows.
Max Breshears is a sixteen-year-old birder and photographer from Ventura, CA. He’s been birding since before he can remember, but it became his number one hobby in 2021 after a summer in Colorado. Currently, he volunteers in/runs several different conservation and young birders groups. He runs the southern chapter of the California Young Birders Club and his most recent volunteer project was banding birds in the Peruvian Amazon, among other herpetofauna and mammal surveys there.
