Observers: Chris McCreedy
Email: cmccreedy@prbo.org
Remote Name: 209.221.205.174
Date: 09/20/2004
Time: 05:35 PM -0400
Hey. I observed a Golden-crowned Sparrow at Rush Creek (near Mono Lake), this morning. It was calling with a call I've only heard a few times from a GCSP, similar to the harsh 'pic' call a WCSP makes at dusk, but sounding more like a Swamp Sparrow, really. It is a hatch-year GCSP. Have y'all seen one yet? I also observed a color banded Song Sparrow. Here on the Eastside, we are very curious as to whether (or what fraction) of our SOSP migrate and how many stay. They almost certainly migrate a bit, which I'd guess is a big reason why the Bay Area has so many more subspp. than us. The SOSP was banded by River Gates on August 9, caught in a net about 2km from where I saw it. It is a hatch year SOSP, and there's a good chance it was born on Rush, I suppose. So the bird is maintaining on Rush, at least for now. Also interesting is that we have done area searches on 4 Mono Basin creeks in 2002 and 2003, and while we have seen big movement of songbirds from the riparian creeks to the Mono/tributary deltas (where many species of songbirds can be found foraging on still-abundant alkali fly hordes on the beach), this SOSP is actually moving away from the lake, traveling 2km upstream since Aug 9.