Golden-crowned Sparrow

The Golden-crowned Sparrow is a large, handsome sparrow, closely related to the White-crowned Sparrow, distinguished by a bright yellow patch at the front of the crown that fades toward the back of the head, bordered by black stripes on either side. Non-breeding and immature birds show a more muted version of this pattern, with duller yellow and brownish-black head stripes rather than crisp black.

The body is otherwise plain grayish-brown, streaked on the back, with an unstreaked gray breast, giving a fairly subdued overall look apart from the distinctive crown pattern.

Key field marks

• Yellow crown patch at the front of the head, bordered by black stripes (bright in breeding adults, duller in immatures)
• Plain gray, unstreaked breast
• Streaked brown back and wings
• Overall large size similar to White-crowned Sparrow

Similar species

• White-crowned Sparrow has bold black-and-white (not yellow) head stripes and lacks any yellow in the crown; the two species can occur together in winter.
• Immature Golden-crowned Sparrows can look dull and might suggest a female House Sparrow, but the streaked back and structure are more sparrow-like and refined.

Golden-crowned Sparrows breed in subalpine and low-elevation tundra shrub habitat across Alaska and northwestern Canada, at or above treeline. In winter they migrate down the Pacific coast, from southern British Columbia to Baja California, where they favor dense coastal scrub, chaparral, hedgerows, and garden shrubbery, often in the same flocks as White-crowned Sparrows.

The species is a strict Pacific coast specialist in winter, rarely straying far from its western coastal wintering range, making it a distinctly regional bird for much of the year outside the breeding season.

Golden-crowned Sparrows forage on the ground and in low vegetation, often in loose flocks mixed with White-crowned Sparrows and other wintering sparrows, scratching through leaf litter for seeds and picking at buds and new plant growth, sometimes causing minor damage to garden plants in winter.

The song is a clear, plaintive, three-note descending whistle, often rendered as "oh-dear-me" or "I'm-so-tired," a mournful sound frequently heard on the wintering grounds as well as the breeding grounds. Diet consists of seeds, buds, flowers, and some insects. Nests are built on or near the ground in dense shrub or tundra vegetation, with typical clutches of three to five eggs.