Length -- 5.75 to 6.25 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male and Female -- Brown above, streaked and varied with gray.
Lesser wing coverts bright rufous. Throat and breast whitish,
striped with dark brown. Underneath plain soiled white. Outer
tail-quills, which are its special mark of identification, are
partly white, but apparently wholly white a.s the bird flies.
Range -- North America, especially common in eastern parts from
Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico. Winters south of Virginia.
Migrations -- April. October. Common summer resident.
Among the least conspicuous birds, sparrows are the easiest to classify for
that very reason, and certain prominent features of the half dozen commonest
of the tribe make their identification simple even to the merest novice. The
distinguishing marks of this sparrow that haunts open, breezy pasture lands
and country waysides are its bright, reddish-brown wing coverts, prominent
among its dingy, pale brownish-gray feathers, and its white tail-quills, shown
as the bird flies along the road ahead of you to light upon the fence-rail. It
rarely flies higher, even to sing its serene, pastoral strain, restful as the
twilight, of which, indeed, it seems to be the vocal expression. How different
from the ecstatic outburst of the song sparrow! Pensive, but not sad, its
long-drawn silvery notes continue in quavers that float off unended like a
trail of mist. The song is suggestive of the thoughts that must come at
evening to some New England saint of humble station after a well-spent,
soul-uplifting day.
But while the vesper sparrow sings oftenest and most sweetly in the late
afternoon and continues singing until only he and the rose-breasted grosbeak
break the silence of the early night, his is one of the first voices to join
the morning chorus. No "early worm," however, tempts him from his grassy nest,
for the seeds in the pasture lands and certain tiny insects that live among
the grass furnish meals at all hours. He simply delights in the cool, still
morning and evening hours and in giving voice to his enjoyment of them.
The vesper sparrow is preeminently a grass-bird. It first opens its eyes on
the world in a nest neatly woven of grasses, laid on the ground among the
grass that shelters it and furnishes it with food and its protective coloring.
Only the grazing cattle know how many nests and birds are hidden in their
pastures. Like the meadowlarks, their presence is not even suspected until a
flock is flushed from its feeding ground, only to return to the spot when you
have passed on your way. Like the meadowlark again, the vesper sparrow
occasionally sings as it soars upward from its grassy home.