The American Tree Sparrow (Spizelloides aborea) is a sparrow of the north, where it is rare anywhere south of northern Canada in the summer. In winter, flocks move south to more southern latitudes, but usually stick to cold climates. With me living in Arizona, nothing is truly considered to be all that cold when compared to latitudes to the north. The northern reaches of Arizona do get very cold in the winter, and at times, birders have found American Tree Sparrows in northern Arizona. Most of the records come from Apache County. When one showed up in Cochise County (southeastern Arizona) several years ago, the birding community was pretty shocked. I didn't chase the bird, and it proved to be good that I didn't when the bird wasn't seen again. When one showed up at Badger Springs Wash of the Agua Fria National Monument by the discovery of Tim Flood this past December 12th, I couldn't believe it. From my home in Peoria, that is only a 50 minute drive. When birders investigated further, it continued.
Prior to today, December 17th, I had only seen American Tree Sparrow once in my life. It came from a 20 hour jaunt during mid-April in 2016 to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was chasing Eastern Screech-Owls, and in the pursuit, my buddy Josh and I came across a good flock of American Tree Sparrows. With it being mid-April, they knew spring was approaching, and they were vocal and sang a neat song. Minnesota is a place where the bird is common in winter, and I was happy to see them in places like that. To get one in Arizona wasn't a huge deal to me, but I always thought highly of it if I were to get it. I didn't think one would show up in southern Yavapai County, and for a bird like that, it is a "must chase". After seeing positive reports on the 14th from many birders, I went to Badger Springs Wash after work and arrived there to search at about 3:30 P.M. I joined Mary, Dara, and Eric and we all searched unsuccessfully for the bird until dark. We concluded that late afternoon-time of day was a bad time to search. There was no doubt about that, and the next two mornings of the 15th and 16th the bird was seen by plenty of observers.
I decided to try for the bird this morning, on December 17th, a day off of work. I arrived at dawn, and waited for a little while before it got more light out. Levi arrived when I started birding at about 7:35, and we teamed up to look for the bird. Badger Springs Wash is a little east of the parking lot to the area, and the bird was frequenting a stretch that was about a fourth-of-a-mile long. The distance might not seem long, but when there is good cover for birds throughout the stretch, it turns into a longer story. Luckily, Levi and I got our eyes on the bird as we detected movement on our first walk up the wash. We came across it at about 8:15, after we had only been slowly birding for about 40 minutes. I thought we had a great shot at the bird, but didn't think we'd get it that fast!
The sparrow was foraging on the ground in a part of the wash where the wash seemed to split. It was joined by a few other sparrows, including a Song Sparrow that saw it as competition for food. Levi and I snapped some shots for documentation. It was behaving as American Tree Sparrows usually do by foraging for seeds on the ground. As far as habitat went, the wash was filled with a variety of shrubby and dense cover-perfect for a Tree Sparrow.
For the next two hours, Levi and I managed to successfully track the sparrow down when it would move around elsewhere. It was a great way to enjoy a state bird, and for Levi, a life bird. At one point, we knew the sparrow was in front of us in dense cover, and as we waited, it stayed in one place while feeding for about 15 minutes. In our times of encountering it, we managed to get a selection of photographs. However, the bird stuck in thick cover for most of the time, and fed rather slowly on the ground. When it would land on higher branches, it would barely perch for more than a second and we rarely had time to snap photos when it would do this.
We also got Rob on the bird, and by late morning, a lot of the sparrows of Badger Springs Wash became more active. The Tree Sparrow perched up longer than it did earlier in the morning, which was awesome. Thanks Tim Flood for this discovery!
