Cassin's Sparrow (Peucaea cassinii), St. Johns, Apache County

This Cassin's Sparrow was found by Eric Hough and Nick and Connie Worth; photographed by Eric Hough on 20 July 2017

Casual and irregular in central and northern Arizona. This sighting, in addition to another sighting by the same observers later that day in Navajo County, and several recent sightings across grasslands in Yavapai and Mohave counties, indicate a current irruption this summer into the northern half of the state. There is one record of several singing individuals about 50 km (31 miles) northeast of St. Johns during the end of June/beginning of July 1976 (Monson & Phillips 1981) and this species was also detected during breeding bird atlas surveys during the 1990s in grasslands east of St. Johns (Corman and Wise-Gervais 2005). The last recorded irruption of this species into this region was in 2011. Breeding activity of this species is highly correlated with monsoonal precipitation originating from northwest Mexico from early July through early September, with males not commencing singing and aerial breeding displays until monsoon storms begin around the beginning of July.

This species is visually identified as a drab, medium-sized sparrow with proportionally long tail, gray-brown face and abdomen, brown wings and tail, rusty-brown streaking on mantle and scaly appearance of scapulars and wing coverts, pale yellow alula, brown streaked crown with pale central stripe, weak brown submoustachial and post-ocular stripes, weak pale eyering, small grayish bill, pink-orange legs. Its song is a distinctive, high-pitched trill followed by a few whistled rising and falling notes, given either from a perch or during flight display. An audio recording of the photographed bird can be found at this link on Xeno-Canto: http://www.xeno-canto.org/380695

20 July 2017, photo by Eric Hough

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