Welcome to the Birds of North America Online!
Welcome to BNA Online, the leading source of life history information for North American breeding birds. This free, courtesy preview is just the first of 14 articles that provide detailed life history information including Distribution, Migration, Habitat, Food Habits, Sounds, Behavior and Breeding. Written by acknowledged experts on each species, there is also a comprehensive bibliography of published research on the species.
A subscription is needed to access the remaining articles for this and any other species. Subscription rates start as low as $5 USD for 30 days of complete access to the resource. To subscribe, please visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology E-Store.
If you are already a current subscriber, you will need to sign in with your login information to access BNA normally.
Subscriptions are available for as little as $5 for 30 days of full access! If you would like to subscribe to BNA Online, just visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology E-Store.
Introduction
Adult White-crowned Sparrow, California, December
In the first formal treatment of the White-crowned Sparrow in 1772, J. R. Forster described it as an “elegant little species.” So many others have found this species to be elegant that Luis Baptista (1989) described it as the “best studied songbird” and as one of the best studied of all nongame bird species. Among the characteristics that make this species so attractive to ornithologists are its wide distribution, its abundance over much of its range, and its conspicuousness during most stages of its annual life cycle—all help to make this sparrow an ideal subject for studies of behavior in the wild. In addition, it thrives in captivity on a simple diet.
Because of these traits, much of our understanding of song ontogeny and geographic song variation in birds is based on the study of this species. Particularly well documented are its physiology (endocrinology, hematology, digestion) and breeding and population biology. In almost all fields of study, the most poorly studied subspecies is the nominate Z. l. leucophrys .
Subspecies of the White-crowned Sparrow differ substantially in behavior. Some populations are year-round residents, others are short-distance migrants, and still others migrate thousands of kilometers. In coastal California, this species is multibrooded, whereas at higher altitudes and latitudes, the shorter breeding season restricts it to only one brood.
Chilton, G., M. C. Baker, C. D. Barrentine and M. A. Cunningham. 1995. White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys), 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/183
