Swamp Sparrow
Melospiza georgiana · Sparrows
Swamp Sparrow
Constitution Marsh, 17 October 2026
A Swamp Sparrow on a fallen branch hung with dead pine needles at Constitution Marsh. Grey face and collar, rusty wings and a brown-streaked cap: an adult in winter plumage, which loses the clean chestnut crown it wears for breeding. These are birds of reed and cattail, and they rarely stray far from water even on migration.
Raised in the laboratory hearing both their own song and a Song Sparrow's, young Swamp Sparrows picked out and learned only their own, which made them a classic case for the idea that a songbird is born knowing what to listen for.
Swamp Sparrow, first winter
Constitution Marsh, 17 October 2026
A Swamp Sparrow among turning maple leaves at the edge of Constitution Marsh. Swamp Sparrows breed in the cattail and reed beds of Canada and the northern states, pour south through the Hudson Valley in October, and a few stay the winter in the tidal marshes.
The blurred streaking on the breast marks a bird hatched this summer; an adult has a plain grey breast. Of all the sparrows it is the one most at home in water, wading the shallows and picking insects off the surface, sometimes with its whole head under.
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