White-throated Sparrow

About the White-throated Sparrow

The crisp white throat patch, striped crown, and little gold spot before the eye make this one of the easier winter sparrows to learn - and its sad, whistled old-sam-peabody song, given even in winter, is often the giveaway before you see the bird.

White-throated Sparrows come in two permanent color forms, white-striped and tan-striped, and the pairing rule is one of biology's oddities: each form almost always mates with the opposite one. The flashier white-striped birds are bolder and sing more; the tan-striped birds are better parents. The arrangement keeps both forms in the population.

They winter across the eastern two-thirds of Texas from November into April, scratching in leaf litter under brush with both feet at once - a double-kick hop that rustles loudly enough to find them by ear. Brushy tangles, woodland edges, and seed spilled under a feeder all hold them.

They are creatures of the understory and rarely pose in the open, so the photograph usually comes at the edge of cover in soft light - which suits a bird whose colors are all subtlety anyway.