Episode 28: White-Crowned Sparrow – Voice of the Wild

White-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys). 

A handsome winter visitor with a crisp cap and a sweet whistle. Look for them starting in October in undisturbed brushy habitats and neighborhoods with good, shrubby cover. While the white-crowned sparrow has different regional dialects, the ones found in the Midwest should sound similar to the primary song and call at the beginning of the episode. To hear the alternate songs, you’ll have to travel farther north or west across the continent. 

Cornell’s sound page for the white-crowned sparrow: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/sounds 

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The following Cornell Lab | Macaulay Library recordings were used in this episode: 

• White-crowned Sparrow song by Arthur A. Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg (ML509702) 
• White-crowned Sparrow call by Wil Hershberger (ML509703) 
• White-crowned Sparrow alternate song #1 by Arthur A. Allen and David G. Allen (ML509709) 
• White-crowned Sparrow alternate song #2 by Geoffrey A. Keller (ML509704) 
• White-crowned Sparrow alternate song #3 by Leonard J. Peyton (ML509705) 

 

Sources and more: 

• https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/ 
• https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/white-crowned-sparrow 
• Dobson, Colin et al. Field Guide to Hotspots and Birds in Illinois. Champaign-Urbana: Scissortail LLC, 2023. Print. 
• Godfrey, Michael A, John Farrand, and Roger Tory Peterson. Videoguide to the Birds of North America. New York, N.Y: MasterVision, 1985. Film. 
• Peterson, Roger Tory, and Virginia Marie Peterson. A Field Guide to the Birds: A Completely New Guide to All the Birds of Eastern and Central North America. Fourth edition, completely revised and enlarged. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980. Print. 
• Sibley, David. Sibley Birds East: Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. Second edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. Print. 

What is Voice of the Wild?

If you learn to listen for them, you will find wildlife everywhere. Voice of the Wild is a podcast about wildlife and the wild sounds they make. Tune in every Friday to learn a new bird song, frog call, or insect noise.

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. A new wild voice in just a moment, so find someplace quiet, take a deep breath, and enjoy.

My Christmas bird count doesn’t feel complete until my friends and I find the local flock of these handsome winter visitors. We search for them in an old weedy hedgerow next to the university's arboretum, but they can be found starting in October flocking in a variety of undisturbed brushy habitats. They’ll visit neighborhoods too, just as long as there is some good cover and few feeders around. Their song is a sweet whistle followed by a pleasant buzz. Unlike most other sparrows, they’re almost as easy to identify by sight as they are by sound. They have a crisp striped crown - the females alternating rusty brown with gray, and the males black with white.

This is the white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) from the family of new-world sparrows, Passerellidae. The White-crowned sparrow learns its song from the others in its flock. Because of this, they develop regional dialects. At the beginning of the episode I played a song which I felt was closest to what I usually hear in central Illinois - I’ll play that song again, but with a few others from different parts of the US. If you’d like to hear more of those dialects, check out the link in the description to a few more of Cornell's recordings.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new wild voice with Illinois Extension.