Striped sparrow resident in Mexico turns up 700 miles from home for the first time in the US

© Austin American-Stateman

The striped sparrow has been seen mixed in with a variety of other small birds feeding on crushed pecans and other food resources, with plenty of water nearby from a Williamson County creek.

Richard Kostecke stood on the side of a Williamson County road for more than two hours peering on and off through a telescope. Then he quietly said, "I've got it."

Right in the middle of his lens was a bird never before seen in the wild in the United States.

The striped sparrow, recognizable by a black mask-like stripe on its head, was perched on a shrub 200 feet away on a sunny February afternoon. It was 700 miles away from its home in the western mountain ranges of Mexico, said Kostecke, the associate director of conservation for the Nature Conservancy in Texas.

It was the second sighting of the bird for Kostecke. He was the first person to see it on Jan. 11 on County Road 428, east of its intersection with County Road 361 near Granger Lake. Since then, more than 100 people from across the country have traveled to the area to glimpse it.

But in order to make its first appearance in the United States official, the sighting has to be accepted by a bird society in Texas.

That's a problem, Kostecke said. It has to be proven that the bird migrated here without any human help for the Texas Bird Records Committee, which is part of the Texas Ornithological Society, to record it.

The striped sparrow is sedentary and doesn't migrate, said Kostecke. No one really knows how it got to County Road 428, said Keith Arnold, a member of the bird records committee.

Some people think the bird was brought in a cage by boat or released from a bird market on the Mexican border, Arnold said.

But the striped sparrow, which is relatively plain-looking and not known for its singing abilities, is not the type of bird people would cage, Arnold said. "The idea that it was a bird in cage and someone helped it to get here is just as unlikely as it flying here," Arnold said.

The committee receives reports of about 70 to 80 rare bird sightings a year in Texas, said Eric Carpenter, another committee member.

The striped sparrow seen in Williamson County likes to hang out with some local sparrows and blackbirds, all munching on pecans that have fallen from trees and been crushed by passing cars, Kostecke said. The section of County Road 428 where the birds gather is bordered by the San Gabriel River on one side and tall grassland pasture on the other.

The owner of the land on both sides of the road, an organic farmer and rancher named Betsy Ross, said she doesn't use pesticides on her land in order to attract all types of animals.

She said she's met people from Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Louisiana who have come to see the striped sparrow.

It's hard to say how long the bird will be staying in the same area, Kostecke said. It could be hanging out for several months or it could disappear any day, he said.

"I think it's safe to say that it's the most photographed sparrow in the U.S. right now," Kostecke said.