Warblers, Sparrows, Finches & Blackbirds
Chipping Sparrow
Spizella passerina
A small, neat sparrow with a bright rusty cap. Its song is a dry, mechanical trill, like a sewing machine.
How to identify it
- Breeding: bright rusty cap
- White eyebrow and black line through the eye
- Plain gray, unstreaked breast
- Winter: duller brown cap
- Long, dry, rattling trill
SizeAbout the size of a Song Sparrow
Carolina Chickadee4 in
Chipping Sparrow5 in
Song Sparrow6 in
American Robin10 in
6 inAverage length, bill to tail
Details
- Size
- 4.5–6 in long; wingspan about 8.5 in
- Weight
- 0.4–0.6 oz
- Habitat
- Open woods, lawns, parks and pine forests
- When to see it
- Year-round across the Southeast; summer across most of the rest of the US
- Diet
- Seeds, insects in summer
Range in the United States
Life history
Food
Eats seeds of grasses and weeds; feeds young mostly insects.
Nesting
A neat cup of grass and rootlets lined with hair, low in a shrub or tree.
- Clutch
- 2–7 eggs
- Incubation
- 10–15 days
- Young
- Fledge at about 9–12 days
- Broods
- 1–2 per year
Behavior
Feeds on the ground in loose flocks. Common in yards and parks.
Conservation
Abundant, though slowly declining.
Cool facts
- Its nest lining was once often horsehair; now it uses other fine hairs.
- Young males learn their single song in their first fall or spring.
- It's one of the most common sparrows in suburban yards.
Songs & calls
▶Bird sounds video coming soon
Watch the Chipping Sparrow
▶Video coming soon
