SPARROWS

Field  Sparrow

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Spizella pusilla

The Field Sparrow is a small, slender sparrow with relatively short, conical bill, rounded head, and forked long tail.

Adults have a gray face with reddish crown and thin white eye-ring. Bill is bright pink. Their back is streaked, except on gray-brown rump. Breast and sides are buffy-red. Belly is grayish-white.

They have a long brown tail, forked and edged with pale gray. There are white wing bars on the brown wings. They have a rusty brown streak behind eye and on their ear feathers. Eyes are black. Legs are pink.

Both sexes are similar, but males are slightly larger.

Juveniles are streaked below. Wing bars are buffy. They are duller than adults.

Adults are about 5.1 - 6 inches in length, with 8 inches wingspan and 12.5 grams weight.

The song is a series of sad whistles ending in a trill, often compared to the accelerating sound of a bouncing ball.

Feeds on weed seeds, grass, seeds, insects and spiders.
Summer diet is made up of mostly insects and some seeds.
In winter, seeds are the main food.
Young are fed insects, and mostly spiders.

Breeds in old fields, in open bushy woodlands, fields and pastures with their weeds and bushes.

Winters in fields and forest edges.

Breeds from eastern Montana eastward to southern Quebec and southern Maine, and southward to Central Texas and north-eastern Florida.

Winters from Kansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts southward to very north-eastern Mexico and northern Florida.

The nest is an open cup on the ground under a clump of grass or in a small thicket.
The female lays 3 - 5 creamy-white eggs (occasionally greenish or bluish-white) marked with brown spots.
Incubation lasts about 10 - 17 days, by female.

SOURCE:
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com