Swamp Sparrow

The Swamp Sparrow is a chunky, marsh-loving sparrow with rich rufous-brown wings contrasting against a gray face and breast, and a streaked brown back. Breeding adults show a neat rusty cap, while non-breeding and immature birds have a more streaked crown with a paler central stripe.

The throat is whitish and unmarked, and the overall look is warmer and richer in tone than many other streaked brown sparrows, with the rufous wing color being especially noticeable in flight or when the bird flicks its wings while foraging.

Key field marks

• Rich rufous-brown wings contrasting with a gray breast and face
• Rusty cap (breeding adults) or streaked crown (immatures/non-breeding)
• Plain whitish, unstreaked throat
• Long legs suited to wading in shallow water and mud, and a habit of pumping its tail

Similar species

• Song Sparrow is larger with heavy dark streaking across the breast, unlike the Swamp Sparrow's plainer gray breast.
• Lincoln's Sparrow has fine dark streaking on a buffy breast band, quite different from the Swamp Sparrow's plain gray underparts and rustier wings.

Swamp Sparrows breed across a broad band of Canada and the northern United States, particularly the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, in freshwater marshes, wet meadows, bogs, and areas with cattails, sedges, or shrubby wetland vegetation. A separate coastal saltmarsh-breeding population occurs along parts of the mid-Atlantic coast.

In winter, the species moves to the southeastern and south-central United States, again favoring marshes, wet fields, and brushy wetland edges, and is less commonly found away from wet habitats at any season.

Swamp Sparrows forage low in marsh vegetation and at the water's edge, often wading into shallow water to pick insects and other invertebrates from the mud or water surface, a habit shared by few other sparrows. They tend to skulk in dense marsh vegetation, often more easily heard than seen.

The song is a slow, sweet, monotone trill, all on one pitch, distinguishing it from the more variable songs of other Melospiza sparrows; the call is a hard, sharp "chip." Diet shifts seasonally from mostly insects and aquatic invertebrates in the breeding season to more seeds in winter. Nests are well hidden low in marsh vegetation, often just above the water, with typical clutches of three to five eggs.