SPARROWS

Bell’s Sparrow 

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Artemisiospiza belli

The Bell's Sparrow is a medium-sized sparrow of the western United States and northwestern Mexico. It used to be placed in the genus Amphispiza, but recent evidence suggested it be placed in its own genus.

The Bell’s Sparrows are small songbirds, medium-sized for sparrows, with relatively long tails. The head is rounded and the bill is fairly short and thick.

Adults are dark brown above with a dark gray head, white underparts and a dark spot in the middle of the breast.
The dark face has a contrasting white eyering, a white spot before the eye, and strong white and dark stripes bordering the throat. The tail is dark.

Juveniles are more uniformly brown, lack the gray head, and are streaky beneath.

Adults are 4.7 - 5.9 inches long, with a wingspan of 8.25 inches and weigh about 15 - 22 grams.

CALL: Both sexes give a distinctive, bell-like tink contact call, and use a similar, but more forceful note as an alarm call.

SONG: An abrupt series of several trills broken up by short chips, lasting about 2 seconds or less. Only males sing, and each male gives one song type which can vary by truncating the last syllables.

Eats many insects, especially during the summer months. Will also feed on seeds.

Breeds in open brushy country, in brushy stands of coastal sagebrush and chaparral, as well as saltbush, chamise, and other low shrubs of the arid West. They winter in open flats, deserts, and dry chaparral of the Southwest.

Those in western California are permanent residents, but most birds move southward into the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico for the winter.

The female builds a cup-shaped nest of twigs and grasses, lined with fine grasses and sometimes rootlets, feathers, hair, and lichen.

The female lays 2 - 4 pale blue or bluish-white eggs, speckled with brownish, ruddy, or black.
Incubation period lasts 10 - 16 days and nestling period 9 - 10 days.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://www.allaboutbirds.org
https://www.sdakotabirds.com