Sparrows defeat me.

Most birds here are easy to tell apart. A Blue Jay is obviously not a Cardinal and a Crow is not a Turkey Vulture. Woodpeckers can be confusing—a red headed woodpecker might be a Yellow-bellied Sap Sucker and the smaller Downy Woodpecker might be a Hairy Woodpecker except for the shorter bill. A wren is a wren but is it a Carolina Wren or a Northern House Wren? A quick look in a bird book and I can name that bird.

Except the sparrows.

Recently crystalline white snow covered the ground. Under the bird feeders, it was cross-hatched and scratched by a flock of birds. They were unusually easy to distinguish, their markings and colors plain against a white drop cloth and bathed in the soft light of grey skies.

This is my chance, I thought, to finally learn which sparrow is which.

I focused on a fat sparrow, pecking at seed scattered on the snow. His bold black and white striped crown set him apart from the other birds scrabbling alongside of him. .

But not in the bird book. And not on the bird app on my phone. He didn’t look exactly like any of these fifteen sparrows in the book or on the app. He was clearly not the House Sparrow with all that white on the throat or a White-throated Sparrow because I didn’t see a yellow patch above his eye. He somewhat resembled the Chipping Sparrow but the Chipping Sparrow had a rust colored crown. When the app threw out a reference to regional differences, I knew I was defeated.

I will never put in the effort necessary to distinguish sparrows. In spite of the more than fifty birds I can identify between sips of coffee and without moving from the porch swing, it is clear that I myself remain the Common Dilettante.

Sparrows called my bluff.