Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: Colorado Gold: Six Special Sparrows featuring Vesper, Brewer's, and Lark Sparrows

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Colorado Gold: Six Special Sparrows featuring Vesper, Brewer's, and Lark Sparrows

[Boulder, CO. Aug/Sept 2015]

The Colorado Gold Rush from 1858 to 1861 was the greatest gold rush in American history -- attracting 100,000 men to engage in a frenzy of prospecting about 85 miles from Pike's Peak in the Rockies. This resulted in not only the production of over a million ounces of gold (worth over $1B in today's prices!) but also the establishment of the new towns of Boulder City and Denver.

And, today, long after the rivers and mountains have been exhausted of the yellow metal, gold can still to be found in Colorado -- but of the feathered variety.

The "feathered gold" that was discovered by this "prospector" on a recent trip to Boulder, Colorado, was in the form of 6 species of American sparrow, namely:

Vesper Sparrow
Brewer's Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Song Sparrow
American Tree Sparrow
Spotted Towhee

We start with Vesper Sparrow:

Vesper Sparrow seen at Rabbit Mtn

Vesper Sparrow is found coast to coast in the US. Although named for its behavior of singing in the evening, this beautiful and heavily streaked, grey-brown sparrow has a preference for open spaces. It is precisely for this reason that the Vesper's numbers are declining -- as a direct consequence of loss of habitat and modern farming techniques.

Vesper's Sparrow has been seen before on this blog -- for example, here in Kirtland's Warbler territory.

Our next sparrow is Brewer's-- unlike Vesper's, this sparrow is restricted to the Western US.

Brewer's Sparrow seen at Rabbit Mtn

Brewer's Sparrows in the US thrive in sagebrush habitat; in Canada, a different subspecies lives in mountainous habitat at treeline. They will winter in Arizona (eg., at Sabino Canyon) south to Mexico.

While both Vesper's and Brewer's Sparrows seem rather nondescript; Lark Sparrow is unmistakable (thanks to the prominent cheek patches):

Lark Sparrow seen at Rabbit Mtn

Not only is Lark Sparrow distinctive looking but, as the sole member of its genus, it also exhibits some unique behaviors -- especially in courtship where the male struts like a turkey.

Song Sparrows can be quite variable between Western and Eastern races:

Song Sparrow seen in Boulder Co.

The Western race, as can be seen here, shows more grey in the overall color scheme.

American Tree Sparrows do not breed in the lower 50 US states -- preferring Alaska and Canada for their nesting grounds.

American Tree Sparrow seen at Brainard Lake

The individual above was part of a flock that must have arrived for the winter.

Finally -- Spotted Towhee:

Spotted Towhee seen at Rabbit Mtn.

This large sparrow is commonly seen in thickets across the West and resembles our Eastern Towhee.

The Colorado Gold Rush is but a mere footnote in history -- however, birders to the state can still enjoy prospecting for a treasure that lives on -- the rich and varied birdlife of the region that warrants attention from the intrepid birder -- an argument so aptly attested by these six special sparrows.

1 comment:

Bob Pelkey said...: This report offers me flashbacks to many sparrow observations, Hemant. Sparrows have been encroaching well into Florida as reported in eBird alerts for well more than a month. Having learned of the preferred territory of my regional sparrows, I am greatly looking forward to seeing them again.; October 23, 2015 at 7:48 PM

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Colorado Gold: Six Special Sparrows featuring Vesper, Brewer's, and Lark Sparrows

1 comment:

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