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Distinguishing Characteristics
Adult Field Sparrow; Oklahoma, December.
Adults sexually monomorphic; length 12.5–15 cm, males larger. Crown and back rusty-brown, sides of head light gray. White eye-ring with rusty-brown streak behind eye and on ear coverts. Greater and middle wing coverts tipped with white forming two wing bands. Tail brown, feathers edged with pale gray. Underparts whitish to pale gray, unstreaked. Pinkish bill and legs are distinctive. Juveniles duller in color, with narrow dusky streaking on chest, sides, and crown.
Worthen’s Sparrow (Spizella wortheni), a Mexican endemic recorded once (the type specimen) from sw. New Mexico (Ridgway 1884), is similar but has a different song (see Systematics, Related species, below), lacks both a post-ocular stripe and rufous at sides of breast, and has the legs black, tail short, and crown uniformly rufous; see Howell and Webb (1995) and Behrstock et al. (1997) for identification criteria.
Carey, Michael, M. Carey, D. E. Burhans and D. A. Nelson. 2008. Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/103
