Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

The sum­mer range of the Swamp Spar­row in­cludes the east­ern half of the North­ern United States south to Mis­souri, Ohio, and Mary­land, and a large por­tion of Canada from New­found­land west to the Rock­ies.

The win­ter pop­u­la­tions con­cen­trate in the east­ern United States from Texas, the Gulf Coast, and Florida north to Iowa, the south­ern Great Lakes, and Mass­a­chu­setts.(McPeek 1994)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Swamp Spar­row are com­monly found in open wet­lands such as cat­tail and sedge marshes, shrubby wet­lands, and other sim­i­lar habi­tats. They can be found oc­ca­sion­ally in lake and stream­side marshes. (MsPeek 1994)

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The adult breed­ing male has a black­ish fore­head with a pale grey me­dian stripe which often ex­tends back as a nar­row in­dis­tinct pale me­dian crown-stripe. The rest of the crown is quite bright ru­fous, often with some fine black streak­ing, and with nar­row black edges on the lat­eral crown. The Swamp Spar­row has a broad grey su­per­cil­ium and slightly buffier-grey lores and ear-coverts. The eye ring is pale grey­ish-white. The eye stripe (from be­hind the eye) and nar­row mous­tachial stripe (reach­ing to the base of the bill) is black­ish-brown, fram­ing the ear-coverts. The sub­mous­tachial stripe is whitish, and there is a nar­row malar stripe that is black­ish. The nape and neck-sides are grey­ish, with darker fine streaks. The man­tle and scapu­lars are dull ru­fous-brown, heav­ily streaked black and also finely streaked with pale straw/buff. The rump and up­per­tail-coverts are more olive-brown, the up­per­tail-coverts have broad, well-de­fined black cen­tral streaks. The lesser coverts are chest­nut. The greater and me­dian coverts are black­ish with broad chest­nut feather edges. The greater coverts also have a nar­row buff tip. Alula and pri­mary coverts are black­ish-brown with the alula hav­ing a nar­row white edge. Flight feath­ers are black­ish with nar­row grey edges to pri­maries, nar­row ru­fous edges to outer sec­on­daries and broader ru­fous edges to inner sec­on­daries. The ter­tials are black­ish with ru­fous edges, be­com­ing buffy-white round the tip. The tail is ru­fous-brown with pale buff feather edges. The throat is whitish. The breast is grey with a few fine dark streaks, oc­ca­sion­ally merg­ing to form an ob­scure cen­tral spot. The belly is grey­ish-white and the flanks and un­der­tail-coverts are buff, with the flanks hav­ing ob­scure darker streaks. The iris is dark red­dish-brown. The bill is dusky-grey with mid-flesh lower mandible. The legs are flesh.

The adult breed­ing fe­male is very sim­i­lar to the male and not al­ways dis­tin­guish­able, but tends to have less ex­ten­sive ru­fous crown which is more heav­ily streaked with black­ish. The dif­fer­ences are most no­tice­able in mated pairs.

The non-breed­ing adult is sim­i­lar to the breed­ing adult but the head is rather duller, the crown is no­tice­able less ru­fous and more heav­ily streaked black, often with a nar­row pale grey me­dian stripe. The ear-coverts also tend to be buffier. The sexes are gen­er­ally in­dis­tin­guish­able, or monomor­phic.

The first year non­breed­ing is sim­i­lar to the non-breed­ing adult but no­tice­ably less grey and ru­fous on head. The crown has very lit­tle or no ru­fous and the nar­row me­dian stripe may be buffier. The su­per­cil­ium and nape are br­won­ish- or buffy-grey, not pure grey.

The ju­ve­nile is much buffier over­all with black streak­ing on the crown, nape, neck-sides, breat and flanks as well as man­tle and scapuo­lars. The streak­ing on the crown is usu­ally quite heavy but can be no­tice­ably finer than that on the up­per­parts. The bill is flesh at first rapidly be­com­ing the adult's. In­side of the mouth is yel­low to yel­low­ish-white.(Byers 1995)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Average mass

  14.9 g

  0.53 oz

  AnAge

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.211 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

Swamp Spar­rows breeds emer­gent veg­e­ta­tion in fresh­wa­ter marshes, bogs, swamps, and wet mead­ows. It also breeds in low swampy shores of lakes and streams and rarely in coastal brack­ish mead­ows.

The nests are about a foot above water in low brush, grass tus­sock, or sedge; often over the water that is about two feet deep. They have a bulky con­struc­tion foun­da­tion, av­er­ag­ing 40 inches in out­side di­am­e­ter, and a smaller in­side nest cup, av­er­ag­ing 2.4 inches in di­am­e­ter and 1.5 inches in depth. The foun­da­tion is made from tightly woven coarse dead marsh grasses. The inner cup is made of fine round grasses.

The swamp Spar­row lays four or five slightly glossy, pale green to green­ish-white eggs marked with red­dish-brown scrawls. Two clutches are laid each year. If a clutch is de­stroyed by flood­ing or pre­da­tion an­other clutch will be laid.

In­cu­ba­tion is done by the fe­male and lasts 12-15 days.

(Austin 1968)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Average eggs per season

  4

  AnAge

• Average time to hatching

  13 days

  AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  71 months

  Bird Banding Laboratory

Be­hav­ior

Swamp Spar­row feeds by wad­ing in shal­low water and pick­ing in­sects and seeds from the sur­face.

Ex­cept dur­ing mi­gra­tion a Swamp Spar­row rarely flies more than a few dozen yard at a time and rarely flies higher that a few feet above the grass tops. Their flight is char­ac­ter­ized by the tail rapidly pump­ing up and down. (Austin 1968)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

The swamp spar­row is the most highly in­sec­tiv­o­rous species in its genus. Its diet is 55 per­cent in­sect in win­ter and 88 per­cent in­sects in spring and early sum­mer. By late sum­mer and into fall the diet changes to 84 per­cent to 97 per­cent graniv­o­rous, with seeds of sedges, smartweed, pan­ic­grass, and ver­vain being the most com­mon sources. (Austin 1968)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

There is no spe­cific pos­i­tive ben­e­fit to hu­mans.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There is no spe­cific neg­a­tive af­fect to hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Swamp spar­rows are wide­spread with a large global pop­u­la­tion size. They are pro­tected by the U.S. Mi­gra­tory Bird Act.

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Jane O'Con­nell-De­vlin (au­thor), East­ern Michi­gan Uni­ver­sity, Cyn­thia Sims Parr (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Byers, C., J. Cur­son, U. Ols­son. 1995. Spar­rows and Buntings A Guide to the Spar­rows and Buntings of North Amer­ica and the World. New York: Houghton Mif­flin Com­pany.

Ehrlich, P., D. Dod­kin, D. Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Hand­book: A Field Guide to the Nat­ural His­tory of North Amer­i­can Birdes. New York: Simon and Schus­ter, Fire­side.

McPeek, G. 1994. Swamp Spar­row. Pp. 311-312 in G McPeek, ed. The Birds of Michi­gan. Kala­ma­zoo: Kala­ma­zoo Na­ture Cen­ter and the Sarett Na­ture Cen­ter.

Wether­bee, D. 1968. South­ern Swamp Spar­row. Life His­to­ries of North Amer­i­can Car­di­nals, Gros­beaks, Bunit­ngs, Towhees, Fin­shes, Spar­rows, and Al­lies, United States Na­tional Mu­seum Bul­letin 237: 1475-1489.