Bob Berryhill 4 Posted July 11, 2019 I photographed this bird in my backyard in Birmingham AL in June of 2019. I think the bill is cone shaped, it's body is perched-like and it's primary color is gray. That got me to the sparrow family but I could not find a black/gray and white one that looks quite like this one. I appreciate your help and any suggestions you have for being able to identify the bird. I call myself a photographer, new to identifying the species. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blackburnian 939 Posted July 11, 2019 A Carolina Chickadee, another hallmark of eastern backyard birding. I personally never get tired of them. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kerri 340 Posted July 11, 2019 Here is a link to a website All About Birds that is good for helping identify species https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Savannah_Sparrow/id 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
akandula 2,073 Posted July 11, 2019 8 minutes ago, Kerri said: Here is a link to a website All About Birds that is good for helping identify species https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Savannah_Sparrow/id @Bob Berryhill, I think Kerri meant to put this link to the All About Birds website to identify the Carolina Chickadee: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Carolina_Chickadee/id I also think that the All About Birds website is the best to identify birds across the U.S. and Canada. If you want additional information, you can go to https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/carolina-chickadee and various other free online websites. An interesting fact about the Carolina Chickadee: It is one of the extremely few endemics to the continental U.S.! Happy birding... 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Spencer 2,284 Posted July 11, 2019 @Bob Berryhill, I can see why you tried to ID this as a sparrow. However, sparrow's cone-shaped bills are much thicker at the base than this chickadees. Also, sparrows are mostly brown more than gray. Most sparrows have pink or light colored legs, although a few do have dark ones like this chickadee. Few people notice the link on AAB to search by bird family. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/browse/taxonomy Here are the sparrows, for comparison: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/browse/taxonomy/Passerellidae 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jcarscadden 30 Posted July 11, 2019 agreed we have them in our back yard as well....and thank you all for providing the links and the differences between the chicadee and sparrow. I for one feel that this kine of ID provides a lot more information that we can use later Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
