Skunk headedness

White-crowned sparrows are fairly common at the lake, but, seeing as they are tiny, wary, and typically barricaded inside their shrub-forts, I hadn't managed to get a decent photo before. I'm also terrible at IDing sparrows. Streaky, non-streaky, brown bits here and there, how am I supposed to remember whether its butt was chestnut or buff? White-crowned is distinctive though; it's the freebie of sparrows.

Here's the little skunk head:


Another white-crowned sparrow fun fact is that they have dialects: sparrows in different areas sing different songs. The ones along Trestle Glen have a song that sounds very like the opening to Beethoven's 5th. "Bip-Bip-Bip-BUUUUUUH" followed up with "doodley doodley zzzzzee" All of them have a similar pattern of a few clear notes, then a bunch of blathermouth, and then a buzz. (As opposed to house finches which sound like acid jazz...). Cornell has some nice recordings.