CLAY-COLORED SPARROW

4 1/2"

FIELD IDENTIFICATION: The Clay-colored Sparrow is a migrant through Wise County.  Adults have a crisply patterned brown and buffy head, with a clean gray nape.  The underside is unstreaked, and the rump is usually brown.

Immature and nonbreeding Chipping Sparrows are similar, but have dark, not pale, lores.  (See topography page for details on head patterns of birds.)

Field I.D. by Claire Curry

Photograph by David Hastings.

Photograph by Mary Curry in Greenwood, Texas