The sparrow with many variations

By BILL CHAISSON
Of a Feather
The white-throated sparrow is a migratory bird through most of its range, but it is a year-round resident in much of the northeastern United States. Where I grew up, at the foot of the Hudson Highlands, we would have them down in the valley during the winter, but like the slate-colored juncos, they would retreat to the mountains to breed. They sing throughout the year, even piping up on a nice, sunny days during the winter, but I associate their song with my visits to New Hampshire, where they breed throughout the state and retreat southward from the White Mountains and north of there in the winter.

Today there are about five migrants hopping around in the hedgerow that separates my backyard from the Lane River. They make frequent forays out onto the lawn, where they scratch backwards with both feet, looking for seeds that I have unearthed during the spring raking of the thatch (and removal of a carpet of acorns). White-throated sparrows are not fond of flying up to my bin-style bird feeder; they prefer platforms where they can see across an expanse of seed and forage more or less as they do on the ground.

The “normal” adult of this species has seven bold stripes, alternating black and white, running over its crown from its beak to its nape. On either side of the head, just behind the beak, is a spot of bright yellow. Below the bill is a white bib with a thin border of black. They are striking birds and large for sparrows, more than 6.5 inches long. Overall, they are brown, but streaked in varying shades of brown and gray in that sparrow way, and with a gray belly. In this species the males and females are identical.

But many references and guides do not acknowledge that not all the white-throated sparrows have a bold black and white pattern on the head. Some adult birds have a plumage that strongly resembles that of first-winter birds. The stripes of the head alternate between tan and black, and the white bib is less snowy and often is divided on either side by a vertical dark line leading downward from the base of the bill. Furthermore, these birds generally have a vague “pin spot” at the center of the chest.

David Allen Sibley illustrates this form well in his field guide and also acknowledges that individual birds may fall on a continuum between the tan- and white-striped. He notes that the first-winter juvenile plumage is present between August and March, which means that most of the tan-striped individuals that we see now should be adults that will remain that way for the rest of their lives. The resemblance to the juveniles strongly suggests that this is an instance of neoteny, the persistence of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. This retention of juvenile characters extends to singing; while both males and females of the white-striped form sing, the tan-striped females rarely do.

There is also a great deal of variation in the song of the white-throated sparrow, which is generally acknowledged to be among the prettiest of sparrow songs, yea, of North American bird songs. Some of this variation is simply perceived, as in the famous dichotomy between how New Englanders hear the bird’s song—“Poor Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody”—versus how our neighbors to the north hear it—“Pure sweet Canada, Canada, Canada.”

But some of the variations are real. A bird recorded in Michigan in 1992 (collected in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology) sings are more abbreviated song, leaving out the third syllable in “Peabody” (or “Canada”) and repeating it only twice. This does not seem to be a trait that varies according to region. Rather it may simply be variation down family lines, as in an entirely oral culture.

My Edwardian era “Birds of America” volume has a particularly charming entry about the white-throated sparrow: “A farmer named Peverly was walking about his fields one spring morning, trying to make up his mind whether the time had come to put in his wheat. The question was important, and he was still in a deep quandary, when a bird spoke up out of the wood and said, ‘Sow wheat, Peverly, Peverly, Peverly.’ That settled the matter. The wheat was sown, and in the fall a most abundant harvest was gathered; and ever since then this little feathered oracle has been know as the Peverly bird.”

George Gladden, the author of the entry on this sparrow, also notes that individual birds will sing variations of their song, citing one listener who heard a bird sing at least nine different variations of the basic melody. He mentions another listener who was driven nearly mad by a bird who refused to finish the song; perhaps it was an ancestor of that bird from Michigan.

Bill Chaisson, who has been a birdwatcher since age 11, is a former editor of the Eagle Times. He now works for the Town of Wilmot and lives in Sutton.