- Spiza americana
Description
Description:
6" (15 cm). Male like miniature meadowlark (yellow breast with black V), but has heavy bill and chestnut wing patch. Female much like female House Sparrow, but with narrow streaks along sides, and yellowish throat and breast.
Habitat:
Open country in grain or hay fields and in weed patches.
Nesting:
4 or 5 pale blue eggs in a cup of plant stems and grass set on or near the ground, often in alfalfa and clover fields.
Range:
Breeds from eastern Montana and Great Lakes region south to Texas and Gulf Coast, locally farther east. Winters mainly in tropics.
Voice:
Song sounds like dick-dick-cissel, the first two notes being sharp sounds followed by a buzzy, almost hissed cissel; repeated over and over again from a conspicuous perch on a fence, bush, or weed. Call a distinctive buzzy note, often given in flight.
Discussion:
Formerly common in farming regions of the eastern states, especially on the Atlantic coastal plain, the Dickcissel disappeared from that region by the middle of the last century and is now most numerous in the Midwest. It appears in small numbers on the East Coast during the fall migration and rarely but regularly in winter at feeders, often with House Sparrows.
Identification
Photographed near Riverside Reservoir, Weld County Colorado.
