Length -- 6 inches. A shade smaller than the English sparrow.
Male and Female -- Upper parts dusky grayish or olivaceous brown,
inclining to gray on shoulders and on edges of some feathers.
Wings and tail darkest. Throat yellowish white, shading to gray
on breast, which is indistinctly mottled and streaked. A yellow
spot before the eye and on bend of the wing, the bird's
characteristic marks. Blunt tail.
Range -- Atlantic seaboard, from Georgia northward. Usually
Winters south of Virginia.
Migrations -- April. November. A few remain in sheltered marshes
all winter.
The savanna, the swamp, the sharp-tailed, and the song sparrows may all
sometimes be found in the haunts of the seaside sparrow, but you may be
certain of finding the latter nowhere else than in the salt marshes within
sight or sound of the sea. It is a dingy little bird, with the least definite
coloring of all the sparrows that have maritime inclinations, with no rufous
tint in its feathers, and less distinct streakings on the breast than any of
them. It has no black markings on the back.
Good-sized flocks of seaside sparrows live together in the marshes; but they
spend so much of their time on the ground, running about among the reeds and
grasses, whose seeds and insect parasites they feed upon, that not until some
unusual disturbance in the quiet place flushes them does the intruder suspect
their presence, Hunters after beach-birds, longshoremen, seaside cottagers,
and whoever follows the windings of a creek through the salt meadows to catch
crabs and eels in midsummer, are well acquainted with the "meadow chippies,"
as the fishermen call them. They keep up a good deal of chirping,
sparrow-fashion, and have four or five notes resembling a song that is usually
delivered from a tall reed stalk, where the bird sways and balances until his
husky performance has ended, when down he drops upon the ground out of sight.
Sometimes, too, these notes are uttered while the bird flutters in the air
above the tops of the sedges.