Date July 4, 2021
Location Harrington Beach State Park, Belgium, WI
This one was very satisfying because it totally wasn't on my radar until I did some last-minute intelligence gathering the night before visiting Horicon.
It's often suggested, in a variety of contexts, to talk to the locals to get good information. This was something I had failed to do before the Phoenix trip back in 2007, my first real "offsite" trip. It cost me the opportunity to get to a place that was supposed to have Vermillion Flycatchers. The consolation was that I went to an alternate location and still got two new birds that morning.
In this case, I decided to watch a YouTube video the night before Horicon. It was a presentation of the history and layout of Horicon marsh and what birds could be seen there. He mentioned Clay-colored Sparrows, which I had sort of tucked away in my mind as a western bird. It's really more of a northern/Great Plains bird, but always west of where I lived.
After watching the video, I decided to look up his song, since this was a species not featured in any of the Birding by Ear CD's. I was frankly not too hopeful, as there are so many species of sparrow and they often have songs that are basically a variation of a Song Sparrow. I was glad to hear that his guy has a pretty unique-sounding song -- just a simple, loud, buzz. I figured I could identify that in the field.
After arriving at the state park to camp for the night, we walked to the beach, which was about a mile away through a delightfully diverse set of habitats. I could hear Eastern Meadowlark one minute, a Wood Thrush the next, and a Green Heron the next.
On the way back near Puckett's Pond, I heard the buzzy song. Almost always, when I hear a new song for the first time in the field, I doubt myself a little bit because I want to avoid wishful thinking. So I scrambled to get a look at him. He was on a bare branch nearby, but very backlit. The look was, to say the least, not diagnostic (other than the fact that it looked like a sparrow), but the song was.
I did see and hear one the following day near the same location (perhaps the same one). This time he was fairly distant instead of backlit, so still not diagnostic, but the song again saved the day. Of course, he's about the LBJ-est of LBJ's!
Range maps will show that this state park is located at the extreme southern edge of its range. This adds to the satisfaction; I can't get this guy at home unless I'm lucky enough to find him in migration.
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