Dashing about in the greater metropolis of Portland this morning attending to some necessary errands, I found myself pulling into the parking area of a large cluster mall (a strip mall that has been designed to hide the fact that it’s a strip mall through the irregular positioning of buildings and parking areas) in one of the outlying areas of sprawl that once had individual town names but that have now simply blended together into one amorphous paved-over blob.
Like any good bird watcher, I have developed a passive sense of awareness of avian movement occurring within my field of perception. Most of the time this sense is just that – passive – noting the movement of birds in the area that don’t necessarily require detailed observation at that moment; a passing American Crow, the odd foraging House Sparrow, etc. However as I was just completing the parking of my Prius, this sense immediately switched from passive to active at the sight of an out-of-place bird.
From out of the stunted and badly in need of tending shrubbery surrounding the parking area hopped a small sparrow-like bird. It was too small for the ubiquitous parking lot denizen, the Brewer’s Blackbird. Its movements and posture were entirely unlike a House Sparrow, the odds-on favorite for sparrows on blacktop. No, this was in fact a White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys.
Now, White-crowned Sparrows are not particularly unusual in Oregon. In Scappoose they are quite commonly seen in the fields and even along the rural roads as they poke about below the Himalayan Blackberry brambles. However in the middle of a large cluster mall in the heart of a sprawling suburb they are not a bird that I would expect to see.
Of course I realize that as it is spring, as the weather has been shifting drastically between sun and heat and cold and rain on each alternate day, and as it is entirely possible to witness most any bird in an urban setting given the right conditions (the Whip-poor-will I saw in downtown New Orleans following tropical storm Isadore some years back, for example). However this little sparrow with the cranial racing stripes was quite unexpected and immediately caught my attention because of that. Such is the constant wonder of watching birds – the latent possibilities that attend any trip out-of-doors.
Peace and good bird watching.
