Bird of the Month: White-crowned Sparrow

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The White Crowned Sparrow, known as WCSP among birders, is an "elegant little bird" that is currently moving through our area from any number of nesting grounds throughout North America.

Full disclosure: The White-crowned Sparrow is my favorite sparrow, so pardon me while I gush.

This stylish sparrow sports brown on its flanks, tail, and back, with white and rufous highlights on the wings. Its throat and neck are a clean, smooth gray that offsets its most dashing feature, a crisply delineated black and white striped "crown" with a slight crest. The finishing touches are a pinkish bill and legs. It's quite the looker.

And it stands out even more among other sparrows due to being larger than many at 6½ inches long. Its tiny cousin the Chipping Sparrow measures just over 5 inches.

The White-crowned Sparrow (known as WCSP to bird banders and birders) migrates through our region in both spring and fall, with October being their peak travel season. I hesitate to say from where because their nesting grounds range from Alaska east along the northern tier of North America and down into the U.S. and Canadian Rockies.

Complicating things even more are the five different identified subspecies, which all have varied breeding habitats and locations. Cornell's Birds of the World website sums it up neatly: "Populations differ remarkably in habitat features of breeding territories, from boreal forest and tundra in northern Manitoba, to alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and the U.S., to the margins of shopping center parking lots and ferry terminals in British Columbia and Washington." And to finalize the confusion, one subspecies (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli) does not migrate at all.

But we don't need to worry about those details when watching for them in shrubby backyards and parks as they stop to rest on their journey.

My favorite WCSP memory is sitting on my "thinking stone" in my backyard as dusk was close. A flock of 20 or so flew into the row of arborvitae that lines the back of the property. They were all singing their whistling and buzzy song. As darkness fell, the songs slowed and eventually stopped. I could no longer see them but I knew they were in there, preening or sleeping. It was enchanting.

In 1772, German naturalist J. R. Forster described the WCSP as an "elegant little species." He was right.

Mary Birdsong is the lead shorebird monitor for Erie Bird Observatory. Learn more at eriebirdobservatory.org. Mary can be reached at mbirdsong@eriereader.com