Swamp Song Sparrow (Melospiza Georgiana) Finch Family
Called also: SWAMP SPARROW [AOU 1998]; MARSH SPARROW; RED GRASS-BIRD; SWAMP FINCH

Length -- 5 to 5.8 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Forehead black; crown, which in winter has black stripes, is always bright bay; line over the eye, sides of the neck gray. Back brown, striped with various shades. Wing. edges and tail reddish brown. Mottled gray underneath inclining to white on the chin. Female -- Without black forehead and stripes on head. Range -- North America, from Texas to Labrador. Migrations -- April. October. A few winter at the north.

In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose, another wee brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up from among the sedges, singing a few sweet notes as it flies and floats above them, and then suddenly disappearing into the grassy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not streaked enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has not the wren's peculiarities of bill and tail, Its bright-bay crown and sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the bird's watery home shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple, sweet note, stronger and sweeter than the chippy's, and repeated many times almost like a trill that seems to trickle from the marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is apt to become monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident delight in its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows come north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places. And yet the song, simple as it is, is evidently not uttered altogether without effort, if the tail-spreading and teetering of the body after the manner of the ovenbird, are any indications of exertion.