Brewer's Sparrow
Spizella breweri
About This Species
This sparrow is a sagebrush specialist across the arid interior of western North America, rarely straying far from that shrub habitat for breeding. Listen for its distinctive, long, buzzy trilling song delivered from a low sagebrush perch, and look for it foraging close to the ground beneath shrubs for seeds and insects. Late spring through summer, during the breeding season, is the best time to find singing males on territory.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- A modest distance of several metres is enough to watch and listen without disturbing territorial behaviour.
- Avoid walking through dense sagebrush stands during nesting season, since ground- and shrub-nesting birds are easily flushed and their nests are hard to see before it is too late.
- Migratory and native bird species are protected from deliberate disturbance under wildlife law in both the United States and Canada, the two countries spanning its range.
LCAvesPasseriformesPasserellidae
Seasonal Activity
344,770 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Passerellidae
Photo
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.