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Vent: Stop calling every little brown bird a 'sparrow'
I was out at 6am this morning by the creek behind my house and saw this sweet little bird hopping around in the weeds. My neighbor walks by and goes 'oh look a sparrow' and it was a Song Sparrow sure but people lump all LBJs (little brown jobs) into one group. It drives me nuts because there's like 40 different kinds of sparrows alone in North America and then you've got wrens and finches and buntings that all look kinda similar but behave totally different. I only learned this after I started keeping a field journal last spring and actually looking up every bird I saw. My wife thought I was crazy but now she can pick out a House Finch from a Purple Finch by the streaking on the belly. Anybody else have a pet peeve about misidentified birds in your neighborhood?
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wesley_adams29d ago
Totally feel you on this, my wife rolls her eyes every time I correct her on wrens vs finches.
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susan64928d ago
My uncle used to call every bird that landed on his feeder a 'chickadee' no matter what it was. One time he pointed at a blue jay and said 'look at that chickadee' and I just stood there not saying anything because what do you even do with that. He's a good guy but after that I started keeping a little foldout bird chart in my glovebox for when I visit. Now he just calls everything a 'little fella' and it works out better for everyone honestly.
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