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A
chapter from the electronic book:
Life Histories of Familiar North American
Birds
Chipping
Sparrow
Spizella passerina [Eastern
and Canadian Chipping Sparrows]
Contributed by William DeMott Stull
[Published in 1968:
Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum Bulletin 237
(Part 2): 1166-1184]
The specific name Alexander Wilson gave this little sparrow, socialis,
aptly describes the close relationship many later authors have
noted between its habitations and those of man. None has expressed
it better than Forbush (1929), who wrote "The Chipping
Sparrow is the little brown-capped pensioner of the dooryard and
lawn, that comes about farmhouse doors to glean crumbs shaken from
the tablecloth by thrifty housewives. It is the most domestic of
all the sparrows. It approaches the dwellings of man with quiet
confidence and frequently builds its nest and rears its young in
the clustering vines of porch or veranda under the noses of the
human tenants."
The early writers spoke of it as the most common bird in their
areas. Audubon (1841) wrote "Few birds are more common
throughout the United States than this gentle and harmless little
bunting." But soon after the turn of the century a sharp
decline in numbers was noted in formerly populous areas (R. F.
Miller, 1933; H. F. Price, 1935; L. Griscom, 1949). The
explanations given usually include cowbird predation or
competition from English sparrows. Yet in 1954 - 58 the chipping
sparrow was the most abundant nesting bird on the campus of the
Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station in Hubbard County,
Minn., in an area where there were many cowbirds and no English
sparrows.
While we continue to think of this bird as preferring man's
dooryards, lawns, and orchards, we wonder where it existed under
primeval conditions. In Itasca State Park, Minn., it occurs in
small numbers in stands of jack pine, in virgin black spruce bogs,
and in stands of virgin red pine. In the more favored developed
areas it lives in abundance. Forbush (1929) says that, "Here
and there in the wilder parts of New England Chipping Sparrows may
be found in forest openings or along the shores of lakes and
streams." On Lake Mistassini, Quebec, Godfrey (1949a) found
it confined to a narrow clearing which was "densely populated
in summer by noisy Indians and their dogs and enclosing the
trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company and the free
trader." The same writer (Godfrey, 1950) found it a
"common summer resident in aspen and coniferous forest edges
and tall shrubbery on the margins of roads, streams and
lakes" throughout the Flotten Lake Region of Saskatchewan,
and Rand (1946) found it fairly common along Canol Road in the
dwarf-birch and spruce flats bordering a river as well as in
muskeg type forest and in open mixed forest. In western Montana
Saunders (1914a) records it as a common summer resident in the
cottonwood groves in the prairies.
Burleigh (1958) suggests that in Georgia the open pine woods
were probably its original habitat, for it is still plentiful in
this type of woodland that once covered much of the state and is
somewhat similar to the aforementioned stands of jack pine and
mature red pine in Itasca Park, Minn.
The evidence indicates that, from one end of its range to the
other, the chipping sparrow probably originally inhabited open
woodlands or the borders of forest openings produced by rivers and
lakes. When man appeared on the scene and began to make clearings
for his villages, he created additional open areas which the birds
quickly occupied. The axes of the European settlers made a hundred
clearings where the aborigines had one, and undoubtedly the
chipping sparrow population of today is many times that in
pre-Columbian North America. ***
Spring.--The wintering population
begins to migrate from the southern costal plain in late winter,
and the last stragglers have usually left the coastal regions of
Georgia by the middle of April. Farther inland in the uplands of
the middle coastal plain, they are usually gone by May 1. In the
south the males are singing on their territories by late March.
Trautman (1940) has the following to say of their arrival in
central Ohio:
It was sometime between March 17 and April 2, usually the
last week of March, that the first Eastern Chipping Sparrows
arrived. A few days after April 1 a small wave appeared, and by
April 10 the species had become numerous. The peak of migration
began about April 12 and continued until April 30. Usually, all
transients had disappeared by May 5. During the largest flights 5
to 35 could be daily encountered. The earlier arrivals were in
groups of 3 to 6 individuals of their own kind, or in flocks of
Eastern Field and Allegheny Song sparrows. They could be found
about weed patches, weedy and vine-entangled fence rows, and
brushy thickets near woodlands. After mid-April individuals and
pairs were most frequently observed on lawns, in trees, in
shrubbery, and in fields, and about farmhouses, cottages, and
villages. In the spring the species preferred uplands and
well-drained situations.
The average date Walkinshaw (1944b) reports for first arrivals
in southern Michigan is April 13. Roberts (1936) gives April 5 as
an average arrival date in southern Minnesota. In central
Saskatchewan, over a 4-year period, the average for first arrivals
fell in the 2nd week in May (Houston 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956).
Usually within 2 weeks after the first arrivals the males are on
their territories.
Territory.--The following
description of territory is quoted from Walkinshaw (1944b):
When first observed each spring male Chipping Sparrows have
been already attached to certain territories, which they proclaim
by singing from some perch during most of the daylight hours. In
Battle Creek they were not always completely surrounded by other
Chipping Sparrows, so that their territories, although limited on
one or more sides, were quite flexible on the others. Territorial
defense consisted chiefly in chasing intruders, which then usually
left at once. I have often observed a trespasser depart on the
mere approach of the resident male with wings slightly lowered and
feathers slightly raised. . . . On one occasion a resident male
drove away a trespassing female.
Louise de Kiriline Lawrence has submitted the following notes
on an encounter she observed between an invading male and a pair
that had just fledged its first nestlings: "A chase, then
halt on twigs with the strange male singing loudly and vigorously
several songs. Chase again, then halt on twigs followed by
impudent singing by the strange male and the home male silent.
This has gone on for several hours (it went on from 1 p.m. until
night-fall) with only short intervals for feedings. Both birds
were panting from the heat and exertion. . . . Sometimes the
female takes part in the chasing." Mrs. Lawrence adds that
the next day the strange male had retired from the scene and the
pair was busy building the second nest.
My own observations made in Itasca State Park, Minn., indicate
that the female defends at least the area of the nest tree. Two
instances occurred while I was trying to trap the parent birds for
banding, using the nestlings to lure the parents into the trap. In
the first instance I had placed the male in a cage to keep him out
of the trap and thrown a jacket over the cage. A neighboring
unmated male soon entered the territory and sang. As it approached
the nest tree, it stopped and sang at intervals. The female was at
the nest and paid no attention until he entered the tree adjacent
to the nest tree. She then attacked and he retreated to his own
territory. On the second occasion, with a different pair, I
released the male from the trap. He flew directly to the nest
where again the female was at the empty nest. She immediately
drove him out. He soon returned, giving the twitter the male
usually uses when approaching the incubating female, and she
showed no aggressiveness toward him.
Territories are about an acre in extent. Walkinshaw found them
to be between 1 and 1 1/2 acres at Battle Creek, Mich. In 1953 at
the Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station, 21 pairs nested
on 52 acres, but much of this area was unoccupied and some
territories were about one-half acre. At the Edwin S. George
Reserve in southeastern Michigan, Sutton (1960) concluded that one
territory was 70 yards by 45 yards, or approximately two-thirds
acre.
Courtship and Mating.--Bradley
(1940) reports that in the pair she observed at Douglas Lake,
Mich., courtship took place while the female was nest building.
"It consisted of outbursts of song by the male from the top
of a cabin, interspersed with quick flights to the ground where
the female was pulling up weed stalks for the nest. Copulation
took place on the ground soon after this display." Walkinshaw
(1944b) observes that copulation "which usually took place on
the ground, but sometimes on a horizontal branch, wire, or roof,
is frequent during the days preceding egg laying and often occurs
several times in succession. The female assumes a crouching
posture with head and tail slightly raised and wings rapidly
vibrating; the male approaches and hovers over her for a few
seconds. During copulation the female (and perhaps the male)
utters a rapid call, see-see-see-see-see."
Nesting.--The female does all the
gathering of nesting material. All observers agree that the female
does all the nest building and while the male often accompanies
her on her trips to gather nesting material, he usually does not
return to the nest tree with her. Nest building goes on throughout
the day with greatest activity before noon. Walkinshaw (1944b)
states that "most of the nest building was done in the early
morning hours," In the single case I observed, nest building
was greater during mid-morning than during the first 1/2 hour of
the day. The greatest frequency of trips was 11 in 30 minutes.
Walkinshaw (1944b) found that nests in May were completed in 3 to
4 days, while the one July nest observed was completed in 2 days.
A single observation of what was probably a second nesting in
Minnesota in the 2nd week of June indicated that the nest was
built in 2 days.
The nest is almost invariably constructed of dead grass, weed
stalks, and rootlets and lined with fine grasses and hair.
Horsehair seems by all odds the favorite nest lining material and
when available is always the principal component of the lining.
When horsehair is not available, the birds will use human hair or
that of cattle, deer, raccoon, or other animals. In one case, a
nest adjacent to a pen of bison was lined with bison hair. Itasca
State Park, Minn., is so remote from horses that no nests found in
1954 contained horsehair. In the summer of 1955 a friend
generously gave me some black hair from the mane of his horse to
take to Minnesota to use as a lure to trap the females for
banding. It worked very well. At nest lining time the females
readily entered traps containing a few strands of horsehair. Even
after I stopped trapping most newly built nests continued to
contain the horsehair, for these sparrows commonly remove the
lining from old nests when rebuilding.
The size of eight nests Walkinshaw (1952) studied varied
between 80 and 150 millimeters (average 112 millimeters) in
outside diameter at the top, between 40 and 60 millimeters
(average 48.3 millimeters) interior diameter at the top, between
45 and 75 millimeters (average 56.8 millimeters) exterior depth,
between 30 and 50 millimeters (average 37.3 millimeters) interior
depth, and between 3 and 5.8 grams (average 4.7 grams) weight.
Chipping sparrows nest in a variety of situations and of trees
and shrubs. The favored nesting site seems to be in
conifers--pines in the Southeast, junipers where they are common,
and spruces in the North. Orchard trees and vines are also high on
the list of preferences. Of 115 active and inactive nests located
in 1954 and 1955 in and around Itasca State Park, 85 were in
spruce, 11 in jack pine, 6 in fir, 6 in juniper, 4 in white pine,
1 in red pine, 1 in low willow, and 1 in an Ampelopsis vine.
Walkinshaw (1944b) lists 51 nests found near dwellings at Battle
Creek, Mich.; of these 14 were in spruce, 8 in arborvitae, 5 in
juniper, 8 in grape vines, 7 in the horizontal branches of horse
chestnut, pear, or apple trees, 5 in rose or spirea bushes, 2 in
the side of old straw stacks, 1 on a mowing machine in a semi-open
tool shed, and 1 on the ground in dead grass. Burleigh (1958)
states that "Pairs frequenting the open pine woods almost
invariably build their nests at the outer end of a limb of one of
the larger pines, the height varying from ten to, not
infrequently, thirty or forty feet from the ground."
A number of observers in addition to Walkinshaw have reported
nests built on the ground. Other unusual nesting sites reported
were at the bottom of a hairy woodpecker's winter roost hole 6
inches deep (R. F. Miller, 1923), in a hanging basket filled with
moss on a stoop within a foot of the door (F. O. H., 1884) and for
3 years in a row a chipping sparrow nested in pepper plants hung
to dry in late summer not far inside a shed on a Philadelphia
County, Pa., farm (R. F. Miller, 1911).
Most nests are built at low to moderate heights. At Lake
Itasca, of 83 nests measured from May 17 to July 23, 1955, 51
(61.5 percent) were lower than 6 feet and 11 (13.3 percent) were
higher than 11 feet. Eighteen of these nests were found between
May 17 and June 8 by following individual birds until they flew to
their nests instead of searching in what might be considered the
most likely places. Of the 18, eight were higher than 10 feet,
three were between 19 3/4 feet and 25 1/2 feet and five were
between 30 and 36 feet. Of these last five, three were within 8
feet of the top of 35' and 40-foot spruces and firs. In the summer
of 1956 Robert Galati found two chipping sparrow nests near the
tops of black spruce trees in a mature black spruce bog in Itasca
State Park--one was 56.5 feet from the ground in a 58.5-foot tree,
the other at 54.5 feet in a 56-foot spruce. They were 70 feet
apart and were both being built on July 2 when Galati first
observed them. He later witnessed a territorial dispute that began
30 feet up in a dead black spruce and ended with the combatants
rolling on the ground. Maurice Broun reports two high nests at
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pa., one 30 feet up in the top of a maple
overgrown with grape vines, and a second 50 feet from the ground
in the top of an oak.
Walkinshaw (1944b) found that the average nesting height became
progressively higher during the summer; 15 May nests averaged 3.6
feet from the ground, five June nests averaged 5.0 feet, and seven
July nests averaged 7.5 feet.
Eggs.--The chipping sparrow usually
lays four eggs, but sometimes only three or as many as five. They
are slightly glossy, and ovate with some tending to short ovate.
The ground is "bluish glaucous" or "Etain
blue," with speckles, spots, blotches, and a few scrawls of
dark brown such as "auburn," "Brussels brown,"
"Argus brown," "mummy brown," or "snuff
brown," and black, with undermarkings of "pale neutral
gray." They are rather sparingly marked, and most of the
spots are confined to the large end where they frequently form a
loose wreath. This wreath may be of very small spots or quite long
interlacing scrawls. In most instances the spots are rather
sharply defined and in many cases the undermarkings are absent.
Occasionally an egg will be unmarked. A set of three eggs in the
American Museum of Natural History is pure white and unspotted.
The measurements of 90 eggs average 17.6 by 12.9 millimeters; the
eggs showing the four extremes measure 20.3 by 12.7, 16.8
by 15.2, 15.2 by 12.5, and 16.8 by 11.2
millimeters.
The first egg is laid on the morning following completion of
the nest. One egg is laid each morning usually before 7:00 a.m.,
through sometimes later (Walkinshaw, 1952) until the clutch is
complete. In most cases four eggs complete the set; three-egg sets
are common, and clutches of two and five are rare. Street (1954)
reports on 63 clutches in the vicinity of La Anna in the Pocono
Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania and Walkinshaw (1944b)
reports on 45 complete clutches in southern Michigan as:
| |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Average |
| No. of sets (Street) |
--- |
17 |
42 |
4 |
3..79 |
| No. of sets (Walkinshaw) |
1 |
15 |
29 |
--- |
3.63 |
Walkinshaw found that the average clutch size decreased from
3.81 in May to 3.00 in July.
Sets containing five eggs have been reported from Newton, Mass.
(G. M. Allen, 1892), Buckeye Lake, Ohio (Trautman, 1940), St.
Louis County, Minn. (Roberts, 1936), and Flotten Lake,
Saskatchewan (Robert P. Allen, fide Godfrey, 1950). Some
variation in egg color and marking has been found. Over a 5-year
period Walkinshaw (1952) examined 35 eggs from the same female and
found them all darker blue than the usual chipping sparrow eggs,
and the markings, usually sparse scrawls, were heavy black. A
clutch of unspotted eggs has been reported (Oologist, 1884:70).
Incubation.--Incubation begins
on the day before the last egg is laid. Usually the female does
all the incubating, but Walkinshaw (1944b) reports one instance of
the male incubating.
Walkinshaw (1952) determined the incubation period for nine
nests and found a relationship between the air temperature and the
length of the incubation period. The four nests that were
incubated during the period of highest average mean temperature
(60.2o to 76.0o
F.) had 11-day incubation periods, while when the average mean
temperature was lowest (48.7o)
the incubation period was 14 days.
As with many song birds, the male feeds the female while she
incubates. As he approaches the nest tree he utters a series of
low chips, sometimes rapidly. At the sound the female becomes
alert and restless, and sometimes leaves the nest to feed near by.
At other times she remains on the nest. In one case the male came
to the nest and fed the female only 3 minutes after she returned
to the nest from being with him. She often chips rapidly, flutters
her wings, and begs as he arrives.
The incubating female often can be approached quite closely,
which I found most convenient. I marked a number of females on the
nest for identification by applying model airplane dope to them
with the tip of a stalk of timothy grass.
Young.--When the eggs hatch the
female eats the shell (Walkinshaw, 1944b). The young, which are
capable of only one activity, feeble gaping, are fed almost
immediately. Walkinshaw (1944b) watched the female feed one young
20 minutes and another 28 minutes after hatching. I have observed
two first feedings. In one case the male brought food to the nest,
the female flew off, and he fed the hatchlings. In the second
instance the male brought food and gave it to the female on the
nest; she then hopped up on the rim and, while the male stood by,
fed the newly hatched young. In nests that I have observed the
male did most of the feeding for the first few days, and the
female brooded the young. Toward the end of the 3rd day she
brooded less and fed the young more often, until, by the last days
before the young fledged, she brought food as often as the male.
The rate of feeding ranged from 2 trips per hour the first day to
17 per hour toward the end of the nesting period. Some individual
differences occur in the roles of male and female in the early
feeding. In a nest observed by Bradley (1940) the pattern was the
same as in those I watched, but Walkinshaw (1944b) reports a nest
where the female did nearly all the early feeding. This was an
August nest when the pattern may be somewhat different, especially
when the male is still tending young from a previous nesting.
The female does most of the brooding. Walkinshaw (1944b) found
that "on a cool morning the male occasionally brooded for a
very few minutes." On the first day the young are brooded
about 90 percent of the time. This declines until after the 4th
day there is little brooding, except when the sun is directly on
the nest, at which time the female often stands over the young.
Weed (1898) recorded the activity at a nest containing three
young that fledged 2 days later. The observations were made on
June 22 and extended from 4:06 a.m., when the brooding parent
first left the nest, until 7:50 p.m., when a parent settled down
for the next night of brooding. During this period of nearly 15
3/4 hours the parents fed the young 189 times. During the first
hour they were fed 13 times. The lowest number of feedings was
between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. when there were 7 trips; the highest
was 21 trips between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. During the last hour of
the day the rate was the same as for the first, 13 times.
William R. Dawson and Francis C. Evans (1957) conducted a study
on the growth and development of nestling field and chipping
sparrows. At hatching the muscular system is poorly developed and
the nestlings remain inactive except for gaping for food. The
muscular system develops rapidly and by the 4th day they can hold
up their heads and are attempting to stand. The capacity for
temperature regulation begins to appear on the 5th day and it is
quite effective by the 6th. On the 7th the birds are
"essentially homeothermic." Dawson and Evans report that
on the 6th day they were so active they had to be confined to
boxes to prevent escape. I found that in northern Minnesota the
6th day is the best time to band nestlings, for at that age they
are large enough to band and may still be easily returned to the
nest; 7-day-old nestlings often abandoned the nest after being
handled. Dawson and Evans (1957) report that "touching or
jarring the nest generally produced a gaping response in 5-day-old
or younger individuals whereas such a stimulus caused older birds
to crouch low and huddle in the nest." In nests they studied
2 individual nestlings fledged at 8 days, 18 at 9 days, 20 at 10
days, 10 at 11 days, and 2 at 12 days for an average age at
fledging of 9.85 days. The nestlings increased from a mean weight
of 1.7 grams at hatching to about 10 grams at fledging. Walkinshaw
(1944b) found several nestlings still wet from hatching to weigh
1.1 grams.
Walkinshaw (1944b) reports that "when only two or three
days old, the young uttered a low zeee-zee-zee-zee call
when they were fed. On leaving the nest they immediately began to
use a zip-ip- zip-ip-zip-ip or chip-chip-chip
call."
He describes the nest-leaving as follows: "They hopped to
the edge of the nest and remained there for some time. Then they
moved gradually out into the branches of the nest tree. Sometimes
one fell to the ground, and it was then led by one of the adults,
usually the male, into a brushy area. By 10 days of age they could
hop into the lower branches of bushes, where they sometimes
remained for long periods on one perch. By 12 days of age they
could fly a few feet, and at 14 days of age they were capable of
sustained flight."
Plumages.--Dwight (1900)
describes the juvenal plumage, which is acquired by a complete
juvenal molt, as follows: "Above, wood-brown, grayish on nape
and rump, heavily streaked with dull black, faintly tinged on
scapularies and crown with chestnut. Wings and tail dull black,
rectrices and primaries ashy edged, the secondaries and tertiaries
chestnut edged, wing coverts and tertiaries terminally edged with
buff. Ill-defined superciliary stripe, dull grayish white spotted
with black. Auriculars wood-brown. Dusky loral postocular streak.
Below, white, streaked except on abdomen and crissum, with dull
black. Bill and feet pinkish buff, the former growing dusky and
the latter wood-brown with age."
In juvenal plumage the chipping sparrow is most like the field
sparrow, but can be distinguished by the fact that it is
"much more heavily streaked, both above and below, than in
the young field sparrow, the dark markings being much sharper and
more distinctly blackish (Sutton, 1935)."
Sutton (1937) observed the plumage development and molts of a
young chipping sparrow, of precisely known age, from the time it
left the nest at 8 days of age until it was 8 weeks old. He
summarizes the changes as follows:
The postjuvenal molt begins when the bird is about thirty
days old. The postjuvenal molt thus must begin in late June and
early July in young of normal first broods. . . .
The plumage worn by the eight-day-old Chipping Sparrow is
not, strictly speaking, a complete plumage of any sort. Not until
the bird is about three weeks old does it don its first set of
lesser wing coverts. As the total skin area of the growing bird
increases new rows or sets of feathers appear, particularly in the
region of the lower breast and belly.
The juvenal middle and greater coverts drop out almost
simultaneously when the bird is about six weeks old. Molting of
the body plumage takes place much more gradually, but the streaked
feathers of the under parts are all gone by the time the bird is
forty-five days old.
The postjuvenal molt does not involve the remiges and
rectrices, but it does involve the tertials, the dropping out of
which is subsequent to that of the middle and greater coverts.
The plumage acquired by this partial molt is the first winter
plumage which Dwight (1900) describes as similar to the juvenal
plumage "but with the chestnut crown veiled with buff edgings
and narrowly streaked with black. Below, uniform grayish white,
unstreaked, washed with buff on throat and sides. Superciliary
line dull white buff tinged. Loral, postocular and indistinct
submalar streaks black."
The first nuptial plumage is acquired by a molt in March and
April confined largely to the head, chin, and throat. This results
in the chestnut crown, the white superciliary lines and the white
chin with the adjacent cinerous gray characteristic of the adults
(Dwight, 1900). Other changes involve increased streaking of the
back brought about by abrasion and a general paling of the buff
and chestnut caused by gradual fading.
Adult winter plumage is acquired by a complete postnuptial
molt, and the adult nuptial plumage by a partial prenuptial molt
(Dwight, 1900).
Food.--Judd (1900) examined the
contents of 250 stomachs taken from March through November from
New England to California. He found that for the whole sample the
food was 62 percent vegetable and 38 percent animal. The vegetable
component was made up largely of grass seed (48 percent of total
food) which included 26 percent (of total) crab and pigeon grass
seed; the rest was grain (4 percent) and a miscellany (10 percent
of total) of the seeds of clover, ragweed, amaranth, wood sorrel,
lambsquarters, purslane, chickweed, knotweed, and black bindweed.
The animal component contained weevils (6 percent), leaf beetles
(2 percent), other Coleoptera (3 percent), caterpillars (9
percent), grasshoppers (10 percent), and 8 percent made up of such
organisms as leafhoppers, true bugs, ants, spiders, and parasitic
wasps. He found that in June the food was 93 percent insects--63
percent grasshoppers, 25 percent caterpillars, and 6 percent leaf
beetles.
At Lake Itasca in summer the chipping sparrows often fed by the
doorsteps where the table cloths had been shaken, and it was
supposed that it would be simple to trap them with bread crumbs or
oatmeal as bait. When neither of these proved effective, we tried
fine chick feed with equal lack of success. These chipping
sparrows were apparently nearly exclusively insectivorous in the
breeding season, for they readily enter grain-baited traps at
other times. Burleigh (1958) writes, "Stoddard, in his
manuscript on the bird life of Grady County, tells us that, during
the late winter and early spring months from 1924 to 1930, many
Chipping Sparrows were caught and banded that had entered the
quail traps operated by the Co-operative Quail
Investigation." Stoddard (1931) baited the traps "with a
half-and-half mixture of 'baby chick' feed and 'hen chow,' or in
wet weather with a combination of wheat, sorghum, millet, popcorn,
and similar whole small grains that do not sour so badly."
Mrs. Louis de Kiriline Lawrence writes that she watched a pair,
feeding young 9 or 10 days old, pecking at a salt block. Notes
submitted by A. D. DuBois record "The chipping sparrows are
frequent and welcome visitors in the vegetable garden. In the
nesting season, when they have nestlings to be fed, they patrol
the row or two of cabbage plants looking for and picking off the
cabbage worms, the troublesome green larvae of the cabbage
butterfly. A chipping sparrow that I saw eating dandelion seeds
seemed to swallow the downy tufts and all."
Behavior.--On two occasions I
have seen an incubating bird tumble from the nest and flutter
along the ground. One nest was in the lowest limb of a white
spruce at Itasca Park, 6 feet from the ground and 10 feet from the
trunk. Each time I approached this nest the occupant dropped out
and fluttered hesitatingly along the ground in a direction away
from my approach. The second nest was about 6 feet from the ground
near the top of an ornamental juniper along the west wall of a
building in Delaware, Ohio. This individual behaved in the same
manner as the Minnesota bird.
Cases of "flycatching" have been reported from at
least two widely separated points. Laurence B. Potter writes from
Eastend, Saskatchewan, "This spring I remarked for the first
time chipping and clay-colored sparrows springing out from a fence
in approved flycatcher style." F. H. Allen (in litt.) reports
from Massachusetts: "Like so many passerine birds the
chipping sparrow occasionally catches insects on the wing. On a
September day I saw one associated with cedar waxwings and a
phoebe that was flycatching from some telegraph wires. The chippy
followed suit but always landed on the ground instead of returning
to the wires."
The chipping sparrow is numbered among those birds that have
been observed sparring with their reflection in a pane of glass (Forbush,
1929).
Robert A. Norris submits the following interesting note on
their behavior in winter flocks: "One characteristic that I
have noticed repeatedly among winter flocks of chipping sparrows
is the proneness of individuals--usually but two at a time--to
engage in brief, almost momentary, aerial disputes or 'clashes'
involving excited call notes and agile maneuvers--sometimes
upward, sometimes in other directions. While still in the air the
birds separate so that their dogfight, if it may be so called,
seems to end as suddenly as it begins. The reason for flight
combats in chippies are not at all clear; they do not seem to be
directly associated with food supply or with temporary territorial
holdings. I have not observed field sparrows giving these aerial
performances at any time. Indeed, these actions, if seen among
members of a distant flock of small sparrows, enable one to
predict with confidence that the sparrows will turn out to be
chippies."
Voice.--Donald J. Borror analyzed
461 chipping sparrow songs by means of an audiospectrograph from
recordings of individuals in Maine, Pennsylvania, West Virginia,
Ohio, and Michigan. The following account is taken from his work (Borror,
1959):
Songs of the Chipping Sparrow. . .have been described. . .as
a simple trill or rapid series of notes, all on one pitch, and of
a dull and unmusical quality. The only variations mentioned are in
speed ("fast" or "slow") and in the number of
notes in the song. . . . Chipping Sparrow songs are generally
simple trills. . . .
The individual phrases of the song contain from one to three
slurred notes. The slurring is usually quite rapid, in some cases
over an octave or more in 0.01 second; it is this rapid slurring
of the notes that gives the song its dull and unmusical quality.
The notes are usually clear, but in a few songs each phrase
contains a buzzy note. The notes may be up-slurred or down-
slurred (or both); the phrases in most songs contain both
up-slurred and down-slurred elements.
. . .Very little variation, never more than a few
thousandths of a second, was found in the length of different
phrases in the same song.
. . .The number of phrases in the songs studied varied from
9 to 72, and averaged 33.31. A few songs whose phrases were two-
and three-noted had the last phrase incomplete.
. . .The phrase length, measured from the beginning of one
phrase to the beginning of the next, varied from 0.044 to 0.145
(average, 0.087) second; this corresponds to a variation in rate
of from 22.5 to 6.9 (average, 11.5) phrases per second. . . . In
general, the shorter the phrases the more phrases there were in
the song. . . . The songs varied in length from 0.94 to 6.86
(average, 2.61) seconds. . . . There was no evidence in the
recordings studied of any significant geographic variation in song
pattern in this species.
It is interesting to note that the songs of eight individuals
recorded in Mexico and analyzed by Marler and Isaac (1960) fall
within the range of variation Borror found in his recordings from
the northeastern United States.
Borror describes the songs of one individual which began with a
short series of long phrases and then abruptly went into a series
of short, more rapid phrases. For two seasons I observed a male at
Lake Itasca that had the opposite pattern. He began with a series
of rapid short phrases and abruptly changed to a series of longer
slow phrases. The change was so marked that one observer concluded
that two individuals were singing in the same tree. Forbush (1929)
remarks that "rarely a bird will interpolate or add some
unusual improvised musical notes."
Beginning with Audubon (1841) observers have noted that the
chipping sparrow occasionally sings at night. Mr. Bent recorded
the following in his notes: "May 13, Dudley St., 10 p.m.
Pitchy dark--heard a chipping sparrow sing one strain." At
Itasca State Park a bird not infrequently sang a single song from
the ridge of our cabin roof at night.
In a letter, A. A. Saunders writes, "On a number of
occasions, in the very early morning, I have heard birds singing a
series of short songs, each one of eight notes, and each one
beginning with a strongly accented note. This may be a sort of
twilight song, but if so it is not common." This may be the
same song that F. H. Allen describes when he writes, "The
early morning singing of the chipping sparrow consists of a rapid
repetition of much shorter songs than the songs we hear at other
times. I have on at least one occasion heard this manner of
singing late in the afternoon."
Field marks.--The two sexes are
marked and colored alike. The species may be readily distinguished
from other Spizellas by the reddish brown cap, the darker
lower edge of which sharply delimits it from the whitish
superciliary line, which is bordered below by the black eye line.
The plain underparts are gray to grayish white. The bill is black.
The song is most apt to be confused with that of the pine
warbler. Competent ornithologists have been misled by a chipping
sparrow singing in a pine warbler habitat.
Enemies.--Statements on the
importance of the cowbird as a factor in limiting chipping sparrow
population seem to vary considerably. Friedmann (1929) lists it as
one of the five species most commonly parasitized in New York
State. He reports "It is an extremely common sight to see one
of these familiar little birds feeding a big, clumsy
Cowbird." In a study of nests in southeastern Michigan,
Berger (1951a), in a small sample of eight nests, had five
parasitized, while of 66 Walkinshaw (1944b) found in southwestern
Michigan only three were parasitized. Sutton (1960) reports that
on the George Reserve in southern Michigan he found only 1 of 38
nests with a cowbird egg in it, and although he saw one young
cowbird out of the nest being fed by a chipping sparrow, he did
not find a nest containing a young cowbird. He attributes the low
parasitism to the fact that in the red cedars of the George
Reserve the nests are very well concealed. The success of the
cowbirds in chipping sparrow nests seems to be low.
About 60 percent of chipping sparrow nests are successful (Walkinshaw,
1944b, 1952) and the failures may be attributed to many different
factors of which predation is only one. Snakes (Sutton, 1960),
birds (Dixon, 1930), and cats (Walkinshaw, 1944b) have been
observed preying on eggs or young. Maurice Broun writes me from
Hawk Mountain, Pa., that "Our chipping sparrows are often
victims of predation by the black and milk snakes. We have noted
that when first nestings fail, the birds usually build their
second nest at higher elevations."
Chipping sparrows are subject to a number of external
parasites. H. S. Peters (1933) lists the following parasites
collected from birds during banding : two species of lice (Philopterus
subflavescues Geof., Ricinus sp.); two species of flies
(Ornithoica couftueus Say, Ornithomyia avicularia
Linn); one species of tick (Ixodes brunneus Koch); and two
species of mites (Analgopsis sp., Liponipsus sylvarium).
A foot disease, often called "foot-pox," is common in
chipping sparrows in the southeast in late winter and early
spring. At Summerville, S.C., 13.6 percent of the 323 William P.
Warton banded in 1929 (Warton, 1931) were afflicted, while another
9.3 percent showed evidence that they had recovered from the
disease. In 1930 the disease was less prevalent, active in only
5.09 percent of the 255 birds Warton banded that year. Robert A.
Norris, while banding a smaller sample, found a much higher
incidence in 34 adults and first-winter birds trapped near Tifton,
Ga., from Feb. 29 through Mar. 24, 1952. He reports (Norris, 1952)
"Twenty seven birds or about 82%, including both age groups,
were afflicted with foot-pox (epithelioma contagiosum),
having discolored tumors on one or more toes and occasionally at
the end of the tarsus. Some had lost a claw or two, and some parts
of toes. . . . 1952 appears to be a peak year for this disease. .
. . The overall average weight of 12.5 grams is very close to that
of April trapped, non-diseased birds from Cleveland, Ohio (Baldwin
and Kendeigh, Auk, 55:436, 1938). Both this fact and the
data from Tifton suggest that, in general, diseased Chipping
Sparrows weigh about the same as non-diseased ones."
Fall.--After nesting the family
groups wander about feeding, usually in weedy fields, along fence
rows and forest edges where they often join company with other
family groups of their own species and also song sparrows and
field sparrows until they form flocks of considerable size. They
wander about until they are ready to migrate in late September or
early October. In the North, migration usually begins in early
October and the last individuals are seen in late October or the
first weeks of November.
Audubon (1841) was of the opinion that this species migrated by
day and he wrote: "These gentle birds migrate by day; and no
sooner has October returned and mellowed the tints of the sylvan
foliage than flitting before you on the road, you see family after
family moving southward, chasing each other as if in play,
sweeping across the path, or flocking suddenly to a tree if
surprised, but almost instantly returning to the ground and
resuming their line of march. At the approach of night they throw
themselves into thickets of brambles, where, in company with
several other species, they keep up a murmuring conversation until
long after dark."
While the feeding flocks may work their way south in the manner
Audubon described, Clarence Cottam (1953) describes large flocks
of night migrants at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. He says:
"windy night of October 23d. . .fully a thousand Chipping
Sparrows were swarming in the lighted areas from the statue of
Freedom on the apex of the dome, outward over the Senate and House
wings and on to the lighted terrace and walks surrounding the
building. . .the floodlights. . .were turned off shortly after
midnight. . . . By 1:00 a.m. there was very little activity and
the birds seemed to be settled for the night. Consequently the
observer left, but when he returned about sunrise not a Chipping
Sparrow could be found. . . . on the night of October 29th. .
.another huge flock was reported at the Capitol."
A. A. Saunders writes that "birds rarely sing in the fall,
in late September or early October." Forbush (1929) says that
the young males begin to sing in August.
Winter.--Most chipping sparrows
winter in the southern states. A few stragglers often linger along
the coast as far north as New Hampshire and inland as far north as
southern Ohio, Indiana, and Oklahoma. They do not remain as far
north as the field sparrow, and they do not ordinarily winter in
large numbers north of the North Carolina coast. From this point
on south, along the east coast, they outnumber the field sparrow
on the coastal plain, but are not so common on the piedmont and
are generally absent from the western North Carolina and South
Carolina highlands. They become less common down the Florida
peninsula. They seem to avoid the southern tip of Florida and the
coast line of the gulf states, although they winter in some
numbers on the coastal plain just inland from the coast and as far
north as northern Alabama and southern Arkansas.
The first winter visitors arrive on the coastal plain of
Georgia in late October or the first days of November or at about
the time that the last ones are leaving the North (Burleigh,
1958).
Chipping Sparrow*
Spizella passerina[Eastern
and Canadian Chipping Sparrows]
Contributed by William
DeMott Stull
*Original Source: Bent,
Arthur Cleveland and collaborators (compiled and edited by Oliver
L. Austin, Jr.). 1968. Smithsonian Institution United States
National Museum Bulletin 237 (Part 2): 1166-1184. United States
Government Printing Office
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