In 2016 I came across a most endearing little bird about a mile away from home on a damp and foggy autumn morning in the tall grass along side a country road. I never saw another and that image was eventually dropped into my folder labeled ‘birds to ID’ because I couldn’t figure out what it was. Fast forward to 2018 when I got my first copy of Kansas Birds and I discovered it was a Le Conte’s Sparrow!

Fast forward again to the fall of 2019 when I am introduced to the Le Conte’s hotspot of Douglas County. I was in sparrow paradise! There were so many Le Conte’s, I didn’t know which way to turn, but the direction of the light solved that dilemma for me.

I never saw a Nelson’s in my 3 visits to the Marsh below Clinton Lake Dam but I saw Swamp, Lincoln’s, Grasshopper, Vesper’s,