As the days get longer and warmer at Carillon Stonegate Pond, many birds will begin to return. Song Sparrows are among these birds arriving during this spring migration. These delightful birds return here and fill the air with their cheerful songs.
Identification: Song Sparrows are medium-sized sparrows with grayish faces and russet stripes on the crown and through their eye. They have brown feathers, cream-colored bellies, thick streaks across their white chest, rounded heads, short stout bills, long rounded tails, and broad wings. Both sexes look similar. They average over 5 ½ inches in length and have an 8-inch wingspan, weighing around one to two ounces.
Habitat at Carillon Stonegate Pond: Summer visitors to backyards and feeders, Song Sparrows forage in groups, often seen walking or hopping on the ground and flitting through branches and bushes.
Flight patterns: Typically seen in short flights close to the ground or between bushes and feeders, using a pumping tail motion. Longer flights are undulating.
Behavior: Song Sparrows hide in bushes and thickets, walking or hopping on the ground, and flitting through branches, grass, and weeds. They forage secretively.
Diet: Mainly insects and seeds, depending on the season. In summer, they eat beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, wasps, spiders; in winter, they feed on seeds of grasses and weeds.
Residence: Widespread across North America, especially familiar in the Northeast and Midwest. Found in open habitats like marsh edges, fields, backyards, desert washes, forest edges, visiting bird feeders, and nesting in residential areas.
Breeding and Nesting: Breeding from April through August, usually nesting in grasses or weeds, sometimes near human habitation.
Migration: Year-round residents across northern U.S.; summer range extends into Canada, winter range extends into southern U.S. and northern Mexico. Northern birds migrate shorter distances compared to those starting farther north ("leapfrog migration"). In Illinois, they are generally year-round residents.
Conservation status: Low concern. Slight population decreases reported by the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Global breeding population estimated at 130 million by Partners in Flight.
Vocalizations: Loud, clanking song with phrases starting with abrupt notes and ending with a buzz or trill. Other trills vary. Linkto Song Sparrow sounds.
Interesting Facts:
The Song Sparrow is found throughout most of North America, but the birds of different areas can look surprisingly different. Song Sparrows of the Desert Southwest are pale, while those in the Pacific Northwest are dark and heavily streaked. Song Sparrows of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands chain are even darker, and they’re huge: one-third longer than the eastern birds and weighing twice as much.
Like many other songbirds, the male Song Sparrow uses its song to attract mates as well as defend its territory.
The Song Sparrow, like most other North American breeding birds, uses increasing day length as a cue for when to come into breeding condition. There are, also, other cues such as local temperature and food abundance.
Song Sparrows often lay two or more clutches of eggs per breeding season.
The oldest known Song Sparrow was approximately 11 years old when it was recaptured and re-released.
For more information on the Song Sparrow and sources of information used in this blog (these are the sources that I am using to learn as I blog), please visit All About Birds, Audubon Society and National Geographic. And the Cornell Lab of Ornithology provides a wonderful source of information for anyone interested in learning more about birds.
We all benefit from the variety of wetland, forest, and prairie environments that support diverse wildlife, plants, and insects of Carillon Stonegate Pond.
Take a hike and see what you can find – and identify!
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