ML627000945

Observation details

In marsh vegetation at south end of pond. I heard it calling as I biked by, recognized it as a Swamp Sparrow, and tracked it down. Familiar Melospiza sparrow with rusty cap, mostly gray face, pale throat, unstreaked gray breast, and orange-brown flanks. I think this bird was bright enough to be an adult, but I'm not completely sure. Chip call is phoebe-like but with a huskier sparrow-like quality. The bird repeatedly popped into view and gave me good views, especially in response to pishing, but I failed to get a photo. This audio file contains two recording segments, starting with a short one that captures a single Swamp Sparrow call at 0:01. The second segment is longer and contains more Swamp Sparrow calls, the first three of which are at 0:07, 0:11, and 0:19. This segment also contains lots of chip calls from excited Zonotrichia sparrows, which sound somewhat similar but lack the same phoebe-like quality. On the spectrogram, the Swamp Sparrow calls show an inverted "V" shape, which the Zonotrichia calls lack.