How to Identify aLincoln's Sparrow
Melospiza lincolnii · 5.1–5.9 in (13–15 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Gray-brown with a buffy wash across a finely and sharply streaked chest, a buff moustache stripe and a thin white eye-ring. Sexes look alike.
Female
Identical to the male in the field.
Male photo: Rhododendrites / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Second photo: Andy Morffew from Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, UK / Wikimedia, CC BY 2.0
Field marks
- Buff band across the chest crossed by very fine crisp streaks
- Buff moustache stripe below the cheek
- Gray eyebrow and a neat thin eye-ring
- Slightly peaked crown, often raised
Similar species
What it sounds like
A rich, bubbling, wren-like song that rises then falls, sweeter than a Song Sparrow’s.
Behaviour that gives it away
Extremely retiring, dropping into cover at the slightest disturbance, so it is far commoner than most people realise.
Habitat & range
Wet willow and alder thickets, bogs and brushy edges.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in North America you are, it is a winter visitor and a passage migrant, seen mainly in spring and autumn.
What it eats
Seeds and insects taken from the ground under dense cover.
Did you know?
Audubon named it after Thomas Lincoln, a young companion who shot the first specimen in Labrador in 1833.
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