(_Ammodramus maritimus_) Finch family
_Called also_: MEADOW CHIPPY; SEASIDE FINCH
_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.