You can see the white throat patch for which this species is named. Note the black, brown and white head stripes. They are another useful character.

The region between the base of the bill and the eye in bird anatomy is called the lore. This bird has a yellow loral stripe. To me, they look like yellow eyebrows.

So for quick field identification, if you spot a sparrow with a white throat patch, a white line down the center of its head flanked by brown or black lines, and yellow eyebrows, you are probably looking at a White-throated Sparrow.

This little sparrow is sitting in a young elm tree while he dines on its seeds. White-throated Sparrows like seeds of a wide variety of plants as well as many kinds of insects and their larvae. They like to live in forests and forest margins throughout their range where they forage for their food on the ground and in vegetation.

White-throated Sparrows spend the winter in most areas of Texas and migrate to the forested areas of Canada for breeding season. These photgraphs were taken in mid-March when the elm trees are about the only trees with green on them. The elms produce their seeds before they make leaves which gives the White-throated Sparrow something tasty to eat in a largely dormant forest.

You can read more about these interesting little birds at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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I was out on photo safari one day and observed a small flock of wild turkey in the front yard of a home in Roaring Springs, TX. I photographed these two because they looked like they were thinking about ringing the doorbell. Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) belong to family Phasianidae which contains turkeys, pheasants, grouse, and other heavy-bodied ground feeding birds. Native Americans have been eating these birds and harvesting their feathers  since 800 BC. Americans have selectively bred  wild turkeys to increase their breast size which has produced the ones we consume at Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations.

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