This morning was my 32nd fall walk of 2020 and the first with steady rain.

Binoculars aren’t too useful in the rain so I took photos with a little umbrella overhead.

Right away I spotted a bird that seemed unfamiliar.

Too greenish to be a sparrow:

Too much yellow and black to be a pipit.

The white throat suggests Yellow-rumped Warbler:

but NO yellow rump:

a quick look at the “confusing fall warblers” page in my Peterson Guide.

I check the page that shows species with streaks or wing bars.

There are 15 of them:

Closest are Blackpoll, Cape May and Yellow-rumped.

It really looks like Yellow-rumped but where is the yellow rump?

Fortunately, I took over 100 photos and two showed what I was looking for:

a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

In all of these photos, I discovered a few of a different bird:

It’s clearly a sparrow, but the breast area is not clearly shown in the photo.

The above photo shows a broad brown lateral throat stripe and a white throat.

It is a Song Sparrow. Usually they are easy to identify because of the dark central breast spot. This was not visible in any of this morning’s photos.

Song Sparrow from another day:

Species list:  mallard, American black duck, ring-billed gull, herring gull, downy woodpecker, blue jay, American crow, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, yellow-rumped warbler, house sparrow, European starling, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, northern cardinal, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow. (17 species)

Some botany:

Today’s group:

NATURE POETRY

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.   – John Keats (1795–1821) 

Miles Hearn