Identificaciones de yelloweyedjunco

I figured this lone bird perching by the pond (though lots of white-crowned, song, and some Lincoln’s sparrows nearby) was a junco (grey headed?), but the CV wants to call it a dark-chinned sparrow. I still think it’s a junco— the habitat is wrong, the wings look grey, no streaking in the brown back, and the tail doesn’t seem long enough (though a bad angle). Seems like juncos aren’t found here much either though. @yelloweyedjunco care to weigh in?

I finally saw some longspurs! (My first time, after several failed attempts at Las Cienegas over the last year.) Luckily three helpful birders (Brian, Steve, and Rich) were there and let me also look through their scopes— these birds were near impossible to see species-level features with just binocs (a sample last photo).

Our conclusion was chestnut-collared for the three birds that we found in the flock of larks here. Some blurry streaks on the breast, smaller grey bill, medium face pattern.

I also occasionally had the Merlin app tagging Lapland longspur audio in the neighboring basin (and never chestnut-collared), but we never saw any to fit that and maybe it’s just not good at distinguishing longspur calls.

This broad-billed hummingbird seemed to have a little violet-crowned DNA in its family tree: it had some violet color to the crown, a taller (more crested) head shape, the throat and breast seemed whiter than normal, and a redder bill than I’m used to in females. Though I’m far from expert with the variation in these birds! Any thoughts @pseudomyrmex?

Hm. Perhaps just wishful thinking on a white-crowned sparrow (these low bushes certainly aren’t the microhabitat where the local BAWW normally hangs out), but my first instinct was that it was the warbler and I can’t make the wing / back pattern quite fit the sparrow what with those two big white wing bars and then a longitudinal white stripe down the inside of the wing (and how black the wing looks). The striping on the upper back, pale throat, and head stripe pattern would fit the warbler, too. But the posture seems more sparrow-like, and that’s the more expected taxon. I wish I had a photo that showed the bill better! But it just kept preening in the early morning and was hard to watch, and I moved on. Seen in the bushes just SE of the bridge.
I’m curious what you think @yelloweyedjunco and @andrewcore Thanks!

Amazing time with the violet-crowned here. It’s definitely the king / queen of the roost— it would chase everyone away from half the feeders. Didn’t mind perching close, and it was so cool to hear it call. Very different voice from all the other North American hummers.

Check out that fun action shot of the violet-crowned chasing the white-eared!