How to Identify aField Sparrow
Spizella pusilla · 4.7–5.9 in (12–15 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Rusty crown, gray face with a white eye-ring, unstreaked buff chest and a distinctly pink bill. Sexes look alike.
Female
Identical to the male in the field.
Male photo: Rhododendrites / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Second photo: Paul Danese / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Field marks
- Bright pink conical bill
- Bold white eye-ring on a plain gray face
- Rusty cap and rusty eye-line
- Unstreaked buffy underparts
Similar species
What it sounds like
A series of sweet downslurred whistles that accelerate into a trill, like a ball bouncing to a stop.
Behaviour that gives it away
Abandons overgrown fields as soon as shrubs take over, so it tracks early stages of land regrowing after clearing.
Habitat & range
Old fields, brushy pastures and overgrown clearings across the eastern United States.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in eastern and central North America you are, it is present all year and a summer visitor that arrives to breed.
What it eats
Grass and weed seeds, plus insects in summer.
Did you know?
Its accelerating song is often likened to a ping-pong ball dropped on a table, speeding up as it settles.
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