This bird is supposed to be shy

So I'm going to post some pictures first and let you revel in the awesomeness of how bold this bird was for a supposedly shy species.  Take it in and try to imagine how excited I was to find my target bird and get such awesome looks as it:

 A beautiful Sprague's Pipit!

So I set off yesterday with two target birds: Sprague's Pipit and McCown's Longspur.  Not only would both of these birds be county, year, and state birds, they would be life birds to boot.  Sprague's passes through every year, but they can be shy buggers and difficult to find.  McCown's may pass through every year, but Rooks would be on the Eastern edge of their migration route.  

When looking for these types of birds, you basically drive around...or at least that's how I do it.  If anyone knows a different way, let me know.  Anyways, you drive around and look for decent habitat: pastures, short grass prairie, disced fields, etc.  Then you hope to see little birds flying around.  The presence of Killdeer can be a good indicator at this time of year to see if birds are using a specific field.  

I had been driving the country roads for a little over an hour when I found this disced field and happened to see a few small birds flying around.  Bingo!

At first all I saw were Horned Larks and some American Pipits (always a nice bird to see).  I then caught some flashes of black on the bellies of a few birds.  When I finally got them in my binoc view, I found that they were Chestnut-collared Longspurs still transitioning into basic plumage.  Now this is only the second time I've seen Chestnut-collared Longspurs.  And this was the best view of them I've had.  They are not as "pretty" at this time of year, but you just don't complain when getting to look at Chestnut-collared Longspurs.  I tried hard to find a McCown's, and there was one bird that I saw through my binocs that looked like a good candidate, but when I got the scope up, it had flown the coop.  

Meanwhile, while I panned the field looking for McCown's, I also had Sprague's in mind because they can use these types of field during migration.  All of a sudden, I noticed a very pale bird off to my right.  I got the bird in my field of view and was awestruck to find that it was a Sprague's Pipit!   I turned on the pipit's song and the bird proceeded to fly within 10 yards of the car and poke around trying to find the bird that was making that racket.  Eventually the bird flew off into the field to the West that had fairly tall grasses, but not before I got some awesome looks at my lifer Sprague's!