Oklahoma Sparrows

November in Oklahoma is a wonderful place to look for sparrows. The Tall Grass Prairie, in north eastern Oklahoma, is awash with many colors of gold, orange and brown. The wind is blowing and the birds are everywhere. I can remember the many miles I traveled to see the same birds in far apart places during breeding season this summer. In the summer they were easy to find once I got to the correct habitat because they were singing. Now they are not singing but they are in mixed flocks calling and flitting around in the bushes and grasses. There are juvinals, first year birds as well as adults in various stages of plumages. Wow. What fun!

This summer I had contacted Bonnie Gall who lives in Bartlesville . She agreed to be our contact when we came and she was wonderful.(Jan Wilson from Long Beach came also) Bonnie had local biologists go out with us two of the three days. It helped to have local people with us to add their knowledge and experience. We were taken to the right habitat and shown where to look. I now know what grass to look for to find Smith's Longspurs. Thank you Bonnie!!

I worked hard to find my only Le Conte's Sparrow this summer in North Dakota. They are everywhere in OK in the winter. I got great pictures of a juvi and an adult. They had nice bright colors and were about 6 feet from me. :)I actually stopped taking pictures after finding them the fourth time in some tangle beside the road. Now, taking pictures of the Lapland Longspur and Smith's Longspur was not even a possibility. We got looks of them flying UP and AWAY (giving their calls) never to be seen again. We did get multiple views of the Lapland flying away. We only got one chance with the Smith's after a phesant flushed them. I will have to go to Alaska to get pictures of both of them on their breeding grounds. The weather was very warm so finding the longspurs and American Tree Sparrows was a challenge. They are still up north where it is warm. They were not there in their typical numbers because of the heat. We did see two ATSP's but not where we could study them in detail. Again I did not take pictures. The ATSP's had not formed their typical flocks yet but were hanging out with junco's etc in the undergrowth.

We found lots of plumages and ages of other sparrows. We found 15-16 sparrows total! Harris Sparrows were in high profile as were Field Sparrows, Slate-colored Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows, White-throated Sparrow, Swamp, Vespers, Chipping, and Song Sparrows. One day we even went to find a rare Snow Bunting that had been seen for a week in Red Slough in south east Ok. (We did not find it :( But that was ok.) We did find a Yellow Rail and the Le Conte's. We ended up birding in Oklahama, Kansas, Arkansas, and were about 1/2 a mile from Texas. What a great time.

I can not stress enough how great fall is in Oklahoma. There are great places to go, great birders to connect with and wonderful birds. Give it a try!