White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys
Panoche Valley, San Benito Co, California. January 2006>

White-crowned Sparrows breed from Alaska eastwards along most of northern Canada. During the winter months, they are found in southern British Columbia eastwards to New York State and can be found as far south as the Gulf Coast and central Mexico.

There are five subspecies of the White-crowned Sparrow (one of California’s commonest wintering passerines) which differ from each other in terms of habitat (both breeding and wintering ranges), the tendency to migrate, and behavior. Although they can, to some extent, be distinguished by subtleties of plumage and voice, the subspecies intergrade, and it is not always possible to assign an individual to a particular subspecies.

Most subspecies are migratory, but the central California form, “nuttalli”, resides year-round in a narrow strip of fog belt along the coast, usually nesting within a few hundred meters of the ocean. Farther north, from southern Vancouver Island to northern California, the migratory “Puget Sound White-crowned Sparrow” breeds up to 20 kilometers inland. It winters along the coast from Oregon to southern California, mixing with the resident “Nuttall’s” form. The two Pacific Coast forms are virtually indistinguishable, with pale lores and dull yellowish bills.

The “Eastern White-crowned Sparrow” breeds in thickets and stunted woodlands in the subarctic and alpine zones east of the Hudson Bay. Most likely to be seen east of the Mississippi River, this subspecies winters from the Great Lakes and southern New England to the Gulf Coast. Winter habitat is brush and dense weeds. The “Mountain White-crowned Sparrow” breeds in high meadows in the Rocky Mountains and winters primarily in Mexico. These two subspecies have dark lores and pink to dark reddish pink bills.

“Gambelli” breeds in a wide variety of habitats including farmland, alpine meadows, shrubbery, dwarf conifer forests, and tundra edge. The tundra ranges extends from Hudson Bay west through Alaska, north to the limits of the tree line, and south through British Columbia. This sparrow winters throughout the West but is prone to wander widely and has been recorded in the East. This form has pale lores and orange bills.
(Adapted from www.birds.cornell.edu/BOW/WHCSPA/)

The following photographs were taken on a trip into the Panoche Valley and most (all) of the hundreds of White-crowned Sparrrows seen were already in adult-type plumages. The birds below were taken in different locations, but they look very similar - all are greyish, and pale-lored with orange-yellow, dusky-tipped bills: presumably therefore they are “gambelli”.

All photos copyright Charlie Moores