Henne Swamp Sparrow

Sparrows, with the exception of White-throats, have never been easy for me, and all too often, I take a quick look, shrug my shoulders, and dismiss them as LBJs, which is birding slang for "little brown jobs"—little brown unidentifiable jobs. This, of course, is just laziness. Sparrows can, to be sure, be tricky to ID, and sometimes, you just can't do the job with the field marks at hand, but more often than not, you can, if you take the time and do the work, succeed in the sparrow business. So it was here, when I was out looking for late Meadowhawks in the Henne preserve and, by the Meadowhawkless boardwalk, heard a rustling in the cattails. An LBJ made itself known long enough for a series of photographs, and then it disappeared into the vegetation. When I examined the image at home, I was flummoxed, but the more I looked, the more sparrow species I was able to rule out. Then I concentrated on that flaring line behind the eye, which seemed like a unique field mark. Sure enough, it was: a good and true indicator of, appropriately enough, a Swamp Sparrow. LBJ mission accomplished.