Called also: SWAMP SPARROW [AOU 1998]; MARSH SPARROW; RED
GRASS-BIRD; SWAMP FINCH
Length -- 5 to 5.8 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Forehead black; crown, which in winter has black stripes,
is always bright bay; line over the eye, sides of the neck
gray. Back brown, striped with various shades. Wing. edges and
tail reddish brown. Mottled gray underneath inclining to white
on the chin.
Female -- Without black forehead and stripes on head.
Range -- North America, from Texas to Labrador.
Migrations -- April. October. A few winter at the north.
In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose, another wee
brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up from among the sedges, singing a
few sweet notes as it flies and floats above them, and then suddenly
disappearing into the grassy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not
streaked enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has
not the wren's peculiarities of bill and tail, Its bright-bay crown and
sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the bird's watery home
shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple, sweet note, stronger and
sweeter than the chippy's, and repeated many times almost like a trill that
seems to trickle from the marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is
apt to become monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident
delight in its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows come
north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places. And yet the song, simple
as it is, is evidently not uttered altogether without effort, if the
tail-spreading and teetering of the body after the manner of the ovenbird, are
any indications of exertion.
Nuttall says of these birds: "They thread their devious way with the same
alacrity as the rail, with whom, indeed, they are often associated in
neighborhood. In consequence of this perpetual brushing through sedge and
bushes, their feathers are frequently so worn that their tails appear almost
like those of rats."
But the swamp sparrows frequently belie their name, and, especially in the
South, live in dry fields, worn-out pasture lands with scrubby, weedy patches
in them. They live upon seeds of grasses and berries, but Dr. Abbott has
detected their special fondness for fish -- not fresh fish particularly, but
rather such as have lain in the sun for a few days and become dry as a chip.
Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock of grass or roots
of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water. Four or five soiled white eggs
with reddish-brown spots are laid usually twice in 2 season.