White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrows sang at Seabrook, Washington, when we visited on 13 April 2020. Erika and I enjoyed recording their calls with our cell phone and the BirdNet app. Each of the half-dozen or so North American subspecies of this bird sing slightly different songs. The song of the race that breeds along the coast form Vancouver Island to northwestern California, Zonotrichia leucophrys pugetensis, can be recognized by the two thick, buzzy trills evident in this sonogram. Click here to hear it.

Young White-crowned Sparrows learn their call from the birds that sing in their neighborhood—not directly from their parents. This learning process takes up to three months. Where two races meet, young sparrows can be “bilingual.” Females in these populations are attracted to both racial song types. Some sparrows learn the songs of the wrong species, but this phenomenon is rare (Chilton et al. 2020).