Bird Profile
Chipping Sparrow
In May it is a crisp little sparrow with a rufous cap and a black eyeline. In November it is a dull streaky bird most people cannot name, and it is the same species.
The short answer
- Breeding adults have a bright rufous cap, a white eyebrow and a sharp black line through the eye. It is the cleanest-looking small sparrow in most yards.
- Winter and immature birds lose almost all of that: a streaky brown crown, a buffy face and a pinkish bill. Most go unidentified.
- They forage on short grass and take small seeds, so white millet on the lawn or a low tray works better than any hanging feeder.
- The nest is a flimsy grass cup famously lined with hair, which earned the bird the old country name hairbird.
- Never offer pet hair from an animal treated with flea or tick products, and keep any offered fiber under about 4 inches (10 cm).
At a glance
- Scientific name
- Spizella passerina
- Length
- 4.7 to 5.9 in (12 to 15 cm)
- Wingspan
- About 8.3 in (21 cm)
- Weight
- 0.4 to 0.6 oz (11 to 16 g)
- Range
- Breeds across most of North America. Winters in the southern US and Mexico.
- Favorite foods
- White millet, grass and weed seed, sunflower hearts, cracked corn
- Best feeder
- Ground tray or low platform. Feeds mostly on open lawn.
- At feeders
- Spring through fall in the North, in winter flocks in the South
The Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) is a small, slim, clean-looking sparrow about 5.5 inches (14 cm) long. In breeding plumage it is unmistakable: a bright rufous cap, a white eyebrow, a black line through the eye, and plain unstreaked gray underparts.
Then it molts, and the same bird spends the winter as a nondescript streaky brown sparrow that most people write off. Knowing both versions is the difference between having Chipping Sparrows in your yard and not knowing what those little birds on the lawn are.
This profile covers both plumages, the three sparrows it gets confused with, the dry trill, the ground feeding setup that works, and the hair-lined nest that gave the species its old name.
How to identify a Chipping Sparrow#
Breeding adult, roughly April to August:
- Bright rufous crown, solid and unstreaked
- Bold white eyebrow above a black eyeline running from the bill through the eye
- Gray face, gray nape, gray unstreaked underparts
- Brown streaked back, two faint pale wingbars, dark bill
- A plain gray rump, which is the mark that separates it from the Clay-colored Sparrow when both are drab
Nonbreeding and immature: the crown becomes brown with dark streaks and only a rufous wash, the eyebrow turns buffy, the eyeline stays dark but softens, and the bill goes pale pinkish. Immatures in late summer can show faint breast streaking, which sends people to the wrong page of the field guide.
Structure helps in every plumage: small, slender, long-tailed for its size, with a notched tail and a short conical bill.
The three sparrows it gets confused with#
| Species | Cap | Eyeline | Breast | Bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chipping Sparrow | Rufous (streaky in winter) | Black, sharp | Plain gray, unstreaked | Dark in summer, pink in winter |
| American Tree Sparrow | Rufous | Rufous, not black | Plain with a dark central spot | Bicolored, dark above and yellow below |
| Clay-colored Sparrow | Brown with pale central stripe | Brown, weaker | Buffy, plain | Pink; brown rump, not gray |
| Field Sparrow | Rufous, duller | None; blank face | Plain buff | Bright pink, with a white eyering |
Male House Sparrows also have a chestnut nape and get called Chipping Sparrows, but they are bulkier, have a black bib and a thick bill, and they mob feeders rather than working the lawn quietly.
The same bird twice a year
A yard can have Chipping Sparrows in every month and the owner can believe they have two different species. From about September the rufous cap is gone and what is left is a small brown sparrow with a dark eyeline and a pink bill. Use the eyeline, the plain underparts and the gray rump, not the cap.
The trill, and what else sounds like it#
The song is a long, flat, dry trill on a single pitch, mechanical and insect-like, running two to four seconds. It is one of the most common spring sounds in suburbs, parks and cemeteries across the continent.
Two birds sound similar. Dark-eyed Juncos trill more slowly and more musically, with a ringing quality. Pine Warblers give a sweeter, looser trill that rises and falls slightly. Chipping Sparrow is the driest and most monotonous of the three, and it often sings from a wire, a conifer top or a rooftop edge in the open.
The call, given constantly by feeding flocks, is a short hard chip, which is where the name comes from.
When and where you will see one#
Chipping Sparrows like open ground with scattered trees, which describes most American yards, so they are one of the few sparrows that genuinely benefited from suburbia. Look for them on lawns, in cemeteries, around orchards, along woodland edges and in open pine and oak woods.
In the northern two thirds of the continent they are summer residents, arriving in April and leaving in October. Across the South and parts of the Southwest and Pacific coast they are present year-round, and winter flocks of twenty or more drab birds work lawns and roadsides together.
Fall flocks often mix with juncos, Song Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows and bluebirds, and they are easy to overlook inside a bigger flock.
What they eat and the feeder that works#
Small seeds year-round, plus a heavy insect diet from spring through the nesting period. Nestlings get insects almost exclusively.
- White proso millet is the single best offering, on the ground or a low tray.
- Sunflower hearts and fine chips, which they can handle despite a small bill.
- Cracked corn in small amounts, and grass seed from your own lawn.
- Whole black oil sunflower is workable but slow for them, and they mostly take what larger birds knock down.
Use a ground feeder or catch tray, or a low platform feeder a foot or two off the ground. A hanging tube is close to useless for this bird. When buying mixes, look at the millet percentage rather than the picture on the bag: see bird seed mixes, and for the wider ground-feeding flock, how to attract juncos.
Feed them on the lawn, not on the deck
Chipping Sparrows forage on short open grass with a tree or shrub within a short flight. Scatter a handful of millet on the mown lawn about 10 feet (3 m) from a shrub in the early morning, and clear anything left by dusk. This works better than any feeder you can buy for this species, and it costs nothing to test for a week.
The lawn connection#
More than most feeder birds, the Chipping Sparrow's fortunes are tied to what you do to your grass. It forages by walking on turf, picking seeds and insects from the surface and from the base of the stems.
A lawn treated with broad-spectrum insecticide has far less for it to eat, and the grubs and caterpillars it hunts in nesting season are exactly what those products target. Leaving part of the lawn unsprayed, letting some grass go to seed, and skipping preventive grub treatments all measurably improve the yard for this species: see pesticides, lawns and birds and the wider list in the bird-friendly yard checklist.
Nesting and the hair-lined nest#
The nest is a small, loose, almost flimsy cup of dried grass and fine weed stems, often thin enough that eggs can be seen through the bottom from below. It goes 3 to 10 feet (1 to 3 m) up, usually in a dense conifer, a vine tangle, an ornamental shrub or the crotch of a small tree, sometimes right beside a door or a driveway.
The lining is what made the bird famous. Chipping Sparrows traditionally lined nests with horsehair, so consistently that country names for the bird included hairbird. With fewer horses around, they use deer hair, dog hair, and hair pulled from brushes, fences and the occasional sleeping pet.
Clutches are three to five pale blue-green eggs with dark markings around the wide end. Incubation runs about 11 to 14 days, young fledge around 9 to 12 days after hatching, and pairs often raise two broods. Chipping Sparrows are frequent hosts for Brown-headed Cowbirds, and a nest that fledges a single oversized chick is a common sight.
What not to put in the nesting material basket
Do not offer hair from a pet treated with flea, tick or spot-on parasite medication; the residue goes into a nest lining that a brooding adult and its nestlings sit in for two weeks. Also avoid dryer lint, which collapses when wet, and any strand longer than about 4 inches (10 cm), since long hair and fiber wrap around nestlings' legs and toes. Short natural hair, dry grass and small plant fibers are safe. Full guidance in offering nesting material safely.
During nesting, the useful feeder move is to keep protein available rather than more seed, a point covered in feeding during nesting season.
Behavior worth knowing#
Chipping Sparrows are unusually tolerant of people. A pair will nest 6 feet (2 m) from a front door and feed young while you come and go.
They are also social outside the breeding season, forming tight flocks that fly up into a tree together when disturbed and drop back onto the grass a minute later. That flock behavior is the reason a lawn can look empty and then hold thirty sparrows.
Males sing from high exposed perches while females do the nest building, and pairs are much quieter once eggs are laid. If a familiar trill stops in June, the birds have not left.
Population and conservation#
The Chipping Sparrow remains common and widespread, with a very large population and no continental conservation concern. It adapted well to lawns, parks and planted conifers, and in some regions it is more numerous now than it was before European settlement changed the landscape.
Regional survey data has shown declines in parts of the East, generally tied to changes in land use and to the intensity of lawn and orchard chemical use. It is a species where individual yards genuinely matter, because most Chipping Sparrows now live in habitat that people mow.
A setup that works#
- White millet on a low tray or on short grass, put out in the morning and cleared by dusk.
- Placed within about 10 feet (3 m) of a shrub or small conifer.
- A dense evergreen shrub somewhere in the yard for nesting.
- No grub treatments and at least one patch of grass allowed to seed.
- If you offer nesting hair, keep it short, untreated and loosely draped where a bird can pull single strands free.
Frequently asked questions#
How do I identify a Chipping Sparrow?
In spring and summer, look for a small slim sparrow with a bright rufous cap, a clean white eyebrow, a black line through the eye, a gray face and neck, and plain pale gray underparts with no streaking. In fall and winter the cap becomes streaky brown, the face turns buffy and the bill turns pinkish, but the dark eyeline and plain gray-brown underparts remain.
What is the difference between a Chipping Sparrow and an American Tree Sparrow?
Three marks. The American Tree Sparrow has a dark smudge in the center of its plain breast, a bicolored bill that is dark above and yellow below, and a rufous line through the eye rather than a black one. Tree Sparrows are also winter-only birds in the northern US, where breeding-plumaged Chipping Sparrows are rare or absent.
What do Chipping Sparrows eat?
Mostly small seeds, especially grass and weed seed, plus large numbers of insects during the breeding season and to feed nestlings. At feeders they take white proso millet first, then sunflower hearts, cracked corn and small chips, almost always from the ground or a low tray.
Why is a Chipping Sparrow pulling hair from my dog?
It is collecting nest lining. Chipping Sparrows have lined their nests with animal hair for as long as anyone has recorded it, and they will take hair from brushes, fences, and occasionally from a tolerant dog or horse. Only offer hair from an animal that has not been treated with flea or tick products, and keep the strands short.
What bird makes a long dry trill on one pitch?
In most of North America, a Chipping Sparrow. The song is a mechanical, insect-like trill on a single pitch, lasting a few seconds. Dark-eyed Juncos give a slower, more musical trill, and Pine Warblers give a softer, sweeter one, but the Chipping Sparrow's is the driest and flattest of the three.
Do Chipping Sparrows migrate?
Most do. Birds breeding across Canada and the northern US move to the southern US and Mexico for winter, often in flocks. In the South and parts of the Southwest and Pacific coast they are present all year, and southern yards commonly host winter flocks of drab, streaky-capped birds.