In spring, White-crowned Sparrows all look like the photo below. Males and females look alike. And when the redbuds are in bloom here, all the White-crowns are in their glorious adult plumage, with those wowser black-and-white stripes on the head.
In my Iowa woods, this species doesn’t hang around in the summer. Nor in most of the United States. (There’s a map at the bottom of this post showing where they are throughout the year.) They skedaddle back to Canada to breed, all wearing that black-and-white pattern.
Then, in fall, White-crowned Sparrows come back. But at that time they don’t all have the flashy stripes. Some have brown-and-tan-striped heads, like the photo below. You can guess their age — about half a year — because they are the young birds hatched this year in Canada.
I love to watch White-crowned Sparrows. They’re larger than many species of sparrows. And they often perch straight and tall, with a lordly bearing.
During the early winter, I see both types, brown-and-tan-crowned adolescents and starkly black-and-white-crowned adults. By spring I see only adults, because all the babies have grown up. There has got to be a time when a bird is in between, molting out of immature plumage and into adult plumage. But I can’t seem to find photos of birds in transition.
One of my favorite places for info about birds is All About Birds, by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. When I visit their White-crowned Sparrow page, I see a photo of the Adult (black-and-white crown) and the Immature (brown-and-tan). I don’t see anything in between. Googling the species turns up hundreds of photos. Again, every picture looks like the adult or the immature.
However, sometimes I see something different. A few times in mid winter I’ve seen a bird that looks like the one below.
The crown stripe is immature tan in front and grown-up white toward the back of the head, with a diagonal transition. The crown stripe on the left side of the bird’s head is brown, like a good immature White-crown’s should be. The right crown stripe is mostly brown but is partly black.
The bird in my photo above isn’t confused. It’s more like an adolescent boy’s voice changing. A natural part of the maturation process. My question is why I don’t find a jillion photos like that.
Maybe you have seen a transitional White-crowned Sparrow. If so, I’d love to hear about it. (Comments section is below this article.) Or if you have thoughts about this bird, I’d be interested to hear them.
Where Are White-crowned Sparrows?
This map of the White-crowned Sparrow’s range is from the Cornell Lab’s All About Birds site. The orange area is where the species breeds but does not remain in winter. Yellow is where you can see the birds only during their migration. Blue is where they spend the winter.
Although the southern 2/3 of Iowa is in the winter range, I see only small numbers of White-crowned Sparrows in winter. Often one or two visit my feeders. Most must go where it’s warmer. (I get that.)
Do let me hear your thoughts!
The White-crowned Sparrows nest in the higher areas around us in MT. I have seen them near the Continental Divide trail and also in Glacier National Park.