Oil on Panel - 4 x 4 inches
This is my oil painting of an immature Harris’s Sparrow. It’s a bird that will soon have a new name. That’s because the American Ornithological Society recently decided to rename every bird that was named after a person. Starting this year, the process of renaming approximately 152 North American birds will commence.
This bird was originally named by John James Audubon after his friend Edward Harris. Harris provided Audubon with financial assistance for the publication of his book, Birds of America. Strikingly, it was not Audubon or Harris who originally discovered this bird, it was Thomas Nuttall in 1834. He named the bird “Mourning Finch.” Although the word mourning appropriately describes this bird’s non-juvenile plumage (the face, cap, and neck of adult birds are black, perhaps representing the togas worn by humans as far back as the ancient Romans to mourn the loss of a loved one), this bird is not a finch.
Historical names of Harris’s Sparrow have been “Hood-crowned sparrow” and “Black-hooded Sparrow.”
An interesting tidbit about this bird is that it’s the only songbird that breeds exclusively in Canada. It prefers to nest on the ground in the cold, short summers of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and northeastern Manitoba. The first-ever recorded nest found was located west of Hudson Bay, specifically in sphagnum moss and Labrador tea, two common wetland plants.
This bird is yet another tipping point species. As mentioned in some of my recent blog entries, tipping point species are those species that have lost half of their population in the last 50 years and are on track to lose another half of their remaining population in 50 years if nothing changes.
Harris’s Sparrows typically come through my neck of the woods in the spring and fall. In fall, they're on their way to their wintering grounds in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. During migration, I have to pay close attention to spot them. Some years, I don’t see any. I photographed this presumed Canadian-born migrant on September 29, 2021 at my home.
Cassidy, J. (Ed.) 1990. Book of North American Birds. Reader's Digest Association.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology. All About Birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Harriss_Sparrow/id
Edward Harris (ornithologist). (2023, June 30). In Wikipedia. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Harris_(ornithologist)
Enns, Amie, Dan Kraus and Andrea Hebb. 2020. Ours to save: the distribution, status and conservation needs of Canada’s endemic species. NatureServe Canada and Nature Conservancy of Canada. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://www.natureserve.org/canada/ours-to-save#:~:text=Ours%20to%20save%3A%20The%20distribution,that%20are%20endemic%20to%20Canada.
Heisman, R. (2023, Nov. 1) All North American Birds Named After People Will Soon Get New Names. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://www.audubon.org/news/all-north-american-birds-named-after-people-will-soon-get-new-names
Pearson, T. Gilbert. (1936). Birds of America. Wise & Co.
Sivakumar, A. (2020, Nov.) The Case for an Ornithological Thesaurus. Birding, 52(6), 38.
Thomas Nuttall. (2023, Oct. 28). In Wikipedia. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Nuttall&oldid=1182342328
Three Years After 3 Billion Birds Lost, America's Birds Are Still in Decline. (2023, Winter). Living Bird, 42(1), 19.
Wallace, T. The History of Mourning Dress and Attire in the West. Eterneva. Retrieved Jan. 10, 2024 from https://www.eterneva.com/resources/mourning-dress
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