Bird of the Week: Bell's Sparrow

Bell’s Sparrows (Artemisiospiza belli) are an uncommon sparrow that are year-long residents in dry chaparral habitats. Their gray head and face together with their bright white eye-ring and thick black and white malar along with their mostly bright white throat and breast accented with a black stick pin and thin black streaks on their flanks, as well as distinctive brown, thinly-streaked back help to identify them from other sparrows. They are often found by hearing their very high, soft, thin “tink” call notes, and beautiful warbling song which is usually heard in the early morning hours during breeding months. (See Merlin, Macaulay Library, or Sibley’s Field Guide app for recordings)

Bell’s Sparrows are found from northern California to Baja and east into southern Nevada and western Arizona.  They are inconspicuous and often overlooked as they tend to spend much of their time running on the ground in dense cover, feeding underneath a variety of shrubs including Coyote Bush,Chamise, Manzanita and Sagebrush. They are closely related to Sagebrush Sparrows and appear almost identical to this dry desert cousin. They are best distinguished by song and location. The Bell’s Sparrow/Sagebrush Sparrow complex all use shrub habitat of the western U.S. and were thought to be the same species but have been separated due to DNA, song and habitat differences.

For more information see Cornell’s Birds of the World located at: https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/belspa2/cur/introduction .