White-Throated Sparrow

 Saturday I was at Big Morongo Canyon with my daughter Rachael. Dan, the man that keeps the bird feeders stocked, mentioned that he'd seen and photographed a whited-throated sparrow recently, among a slew of white-crowned sparrows that were dominating the feeders. He pointed to the bushes on the left side and said it was darting in and out of the bushes there and a challenge to get a photograph in good light. Sure enough, the white-throated sparrow emerged, darting in and out among a bevy of white-crowned sparrows. I would never have noticed the difference in the sparrows without his mention of it. I took lots of photos, many of them very poor, but enough good ones to have a good record of it. I was happy to add a new bird to my list. 

Dan indicated it was a rare visitor to Big Morongo and the map, below, bears that out. It is mostly a coastal non-breeding visitor in California. 

From Wikipedia

It is a beautiful sparrow with reddish/brown upperparts with dark brown streaks and two white wingbars. There are two variations of head stripes. The white-striped form has a black crown with a white central stripe and a white supercilium. The tan form has a dark brown crown with a tan central stripe and a tan supercilium. Both variations have yellow spots between each eye and the bill. The bill is small and gray. The tail is quite long. The underparts are grayish with a white throat patch sometimes outlined with a black line.