Charlie Spencer

If your friend asks, the other one at the suet is a Gray Catbird.

Part of the birding experience is observing death. As the number of birds at my feeders has increase over the years, so has the number of birds I bury. They are never more than two or three a year but when you have several dozen regulars, odd are some are going to be near the end of their lives. I bury them quietly, partly for the dignity they never knew they deserved, partly to prevent any disease transmission to the others, and frankly, to keep the terrier from bringing them in the house.

Looks more like a golf club to me, although I can't say exactly which one. Definitely some type of driver or wedge, not a wood or putter.

Oh, the individual coverts! I've been looking for a blob of white spread across multiple feathers, like how the cheek on the one above kind of resembles a striking snake's head.

The featherless area may be the result of a strike from a predator, closing enough to pull the feathers out but not close enough to break the skin. Such a strike could possibly be the cause of the bird's other problems.

And to give you more ammunition, the color doesn't extend down to the coverts.

@Mark, some House Finches are shaded orange or even yellow. Like @Bird Brain says, it's not the intensity of the color as much as the distribution over the body. Since you asked, https://www.audubon.org/news/house-finch-or-purple-finch-heres-how-tell-them-apart

Apparently I know far less about the shape of hockey sticks than I thought. Skinny thing, makes about a 60-degree bend at one end, long shaft is about six or seven times the length of the shorter, wider blade, right? Or maybe some people interpreting field marks are more artistically interpretive than I am. I guess it's moot; I'm only in BCCH territory every few years anyway.

"Hockey stick"?

I'm 60. I can hear most birds but not all. The bigger problem is I have far more hearing loss in the right ear, so I am no longer able to accurately estimate the direction to a singing bird. Even with hearing aids, if I hear a bird calling from what I estimate to be in front, I have to look toward 1:00 or even 1:30.

Glad to here it but he pasted similar links in response to other questions this afternoon. Note that I am not questioning his knowledge, only the value of this type of response. Yours just happened to be the first time I saw it.

Okay, why, and what does that indicate?

I'll never be one-hundredth the birder he is, but an unadorned link to a retailer isn't an encouraging response. His responses often strike me as curt but he's normally informative. After all, this is a forum for people to ask for IDs. If all we do is refer people to Amazon, why have the forum at all?

Not helpful. Yes, it's a common bird and should be a relatively easy sparrow for beginners to ID. But if you're going to point people to books, why respond? I'm pretty sure people know field guides exist. There are plenty of one-time posters here who are interested in having single bird ID'ed but not in starting a new hobby. This strikes me as similar to 'Read the darn manual' responses that often show up on computer forums. If you must, at least link to a free resource.