The Introduction Article is just the first of 11 articles in each species account that provide life history information for the species. The remaining articles provide detailed information regarding distribution, migration, habitat, diet, sounds, behavior, breeding, current population status and conservation. Each species account also includes a multimedia section that displays the latest photos, audio selections and videos from Macaulay Library’s extensive galleries. Written and continually updated by acknowledged experts on each species, Birds of North America accounts include a comprehensive bibliography of published research on the species.
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Pawnee National Grasslands, Colorado 7/8/05; photographer Ernesto Scott
“I hear a bay-wing [Vesper Sparrow] on the railroad fence sing - the rhythm - somewhat like char, (or here here), che che, chip, chip, chip (fast), chitter, chitter, chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea ttchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind.”
Henry David Thoreau in his Journal entry for 13 April 1854 (Thoreau 1984).
Across grasslands, open valleys, and arid steppes, the beauty and exuberance of the setting sun is often matched by Vesper Sparrows, as they fill the evening with sweet song while affirming the passing day and appealing for safe passage through the coming night. The naturalist John Burroughs described the tinkling song of the Vesper Sparrow as particularly sweet and splendid in the evening, resulting in the name “Vesper.” This species sings in the morning and during the day, but often continues its double-noted song into the twilight of vespers, after most other birds have become still.
The Vesper Sparrow is a large, pale, brown-streaked sparrow with white outer tail feathers and rufous lesser wing coverts. Prior to the 1880s, it was known as the Grass Finch, the Bay-winged Bunting or Sparrow, and the “Hesperian Bird.” The Latin and Greek roots of its scientific name refer to its grass-dominated habitats (Pooecetes meaning “grass dweller” and gramineus meaning “fond of grass”).
A ground-dwelling species, it prefers dry grass fields, with some shrubs or similar structure, and is found in open habitats, including old fields, shrubsteppe, grasslands, and cultivated crop fields. In many areas the species responds quickly to changes in habitat; it is often the first species to occupy reclaimed mine sites and will abandon old farm fields as they return to forest.
The Vesper Sparrow was present but probably rare in its eastern range before European settlement; by about 1900, however, the species was considered common throughout its eastern range and one of the characteristic species where forests had been cleared. Today, it is undergoing a dramatic decline in the East as abandoned farmland reverts to forests. In the Midwest, it currently depends on row-crops and adjacent uncultivated lands, while, in the West, it continues to be common in shrubsteppe and open rangelands.
L. B. Best and colleagues used the Vesper Sparrow as the subject of many studies on the of birds to croplands (
Best, L. B. (1983a). Bird use of fencerows: implications of contemporary fencerow management practice. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 11:343-347.
Best 1983a; Rodenhouse and Best
Rodenhouse, N. L. and L. B. Best. (1983). Breeding ecology of Vesper Sparrow in corn and soybean fields. Am. Midl. Nat. 110:265-275.
Rodenhouse and Best 1983,
Rodenhouse, N. L. and L. B. Best. (1994). Foraging patterns of Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus) breeding in cropland. Am. Midl. Nat. 131:196-206.
Rodenhouse and Best 1994;
Best, L. B. and N. L. Rodenhouse. (1984). Territory preference of Vesper Sparrows in cropland. Wilson Bulletin 96:72-82.
Best and Rodenhouse 1984;
Perritt, J. E. and L. B. Best. (1989). Effects of weather on the breeding ecology of Vesper Sparrow in Iowa crop fields. Am. Midl. Nat. 121:355-360.
Perritt and Best 1989;
Best, L. B. and J. P. Gionfriddo. (1991). Characterization of grit use by cornfield birds. Wilson Bulletin 103:68-82.
Best and Gionfriddo 1991;
Frawley, B. J. and L. B. Best. (1991). Effects of mowing on breeding bird abundance and species composition in alfalfa fields. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 19:135-142.
Frawley and Best 1991;
Camp, M. and L. B. Best. (1994). Nest density and nesting success of birds in roadsides adjacent to rowcrop fields. Am. Midl. Nat. 131:347-358.
Camp and Best 1994;
Stallman, H. R. and L. B. Best. (1996). Bird use of an experimental strip intercropping system in northeast Iowa. J. Wildl. Manage. 60:354-362.
Stallman and Best 1996); it has also been included in studies on responses to habitat disturbances (
Best, L. B. (1972). First-year effects of sagebrush control on two sparrows. J. Wildl. Manage. 36:534-544.
Best 1972; Whitmore
Whitmore, R. C. (1979a). Short-term change in vegetation structure and its effect on Grasshopper Sparrows in West Virginia. Auk 96:621-625.
Whitmore 1979a,
Whitmore, R. C. (1979b). Temporal variation in the selected habitats of a guild of grassland sparrows. Wilson Bulletin 91:592-598.
Whitmore 1979b;
Wray II, T., K. A. Strait and R. C. Whitmore. (1982). Reproductive success of grassland sparrows on a reclaimed surface mine in West Virginia. Auk 99:157-164.
Wray II et al. 1982;
Schaid, T. A., D. W. Uresk, W. L. Tucher and R. L. Linder. (1983). Effects of surface mining on the Vesper Sparrow in the northern Great Plains. J. Range Manage. 36:500-503.
Schaid et al. 1983). This spe-cies has been the primary subject of studies that expanded our understanding of nestling development (Sutton
Sutton, G. M. (1935). The juvenal plumage and postjuvenal molt in several species of Michigan sparrows. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Inst. Sci. Bull. 3.
Sutton 1935,
Sutton, G. M. (1941b). The juvenal plumage and postjuvenal molt of the Vesper Sparrow. no. 1, Ann Arbor: Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool., Univ. Mich., 438.
Sutton 1941b,
Sutton, G. M. (1960d). The nesting fringillids of the Edwin S. George Reserve, southeastern Michigan. Pt. V. Jack-Pine Warbler 38:2-15.
Sutton 1960d;
Dawson, W. R. and J. M. Allen. (1960). Thyroid activity in nestling Vesper Sparrows. Condor 62:403-405.
Dawson and Allen 1960;
Dawson, W. R. and F. C. Evans. (1960). Relation of growth and development to temperature regulation in nestling Vesper Sparrows. Condor 62:329-340.
Dawson and Evans 1960) and avian physiology (
Salt, W. R. (1954). The structure of the cloacal protuberance of the Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus) and certain other passerine birds. Auk 71:64-73.
Salt 1954,
Ohmart, R. D. and E. L. Smith. (1971). Water deprivation and use of sodium chloride solutions by Vesper Sparrows (Pooecetes gramineus). Condor 73:364-366.
Ohmart and Smith 1971,
Swain, S. D. (1987). Overnight changes in circulating energy substrate concentrations in the Vesper Sparrows (Pooecetes gramineus). Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 86A:439-441.
Swain 1987). Vesper Sparrows have also been the subject of studies on the ecology of grassland birds (
Askins, R. A. (1999a). "History of grassland birds in eastern North America." In Ecology and conservation of grassland birds of the Western Hemisphere., edited by P. D. Vickery and J. R. Herkert, 60-71. Stud. Avian Biol. 19.
Askins 1999a), particularly in Maine (Vickery et al.
Vickery, P. D., Jr. Hunter, M. L. and J. V. Wells. (1992a). Evidence of incidental nest predation and its effects on nests of threatened grassland birds. Oikos 63:281-288.
Vickery et al. 1992a,
Vickery, P. D., Jr. Hunter, M. L. and J. V. Wells. (1992b). Is density an indicator of breeding success? Auk 109:706-710.
Vickery et al. 1992b,
Vickery, P. D., Jr. Hunter, M. L. and J. V. Wells. (1992c). Use of a new reproductive index to evaluate relationship between habitat quality and breeding success. Auk 109:697-705.
Vickery et al. 1992c,
Vickery, P. D., Jr. Hunter, M. L. and S. M. Melvin. (1994). Effects of habitat area on the distribution of grassland birds of Maine. Conserv. Biol. 8:1087-1097.
Vickery et al. 1994,
Vickery, P. D., Jr. Hunter, M. L. and J. V. Wells. (1999a). "Effects of fire and herbicide treatment on habitat selection in grassland birds in southern Maine." In Ecology and conservation of grassland birds of the Western Hemisphere., edited by P. D. Vickery and J. R. Herkert, 149-159. Stud. Avian Biol. 19.
Vickery et al. 1999a) and the western and central United States (
Wiens, J. A. (1969). An approach to the study of ecological relationships among grassland birds. Ornithol. Monogr. 8:1-93.
Wiens 1969; Rotenberry and Wiens
Rotenberry, J. T. and J. A. Wiens. (1980a). Habitat structure, patchiness, and avian communities in North American steppe vegetation: a multivariate analysis. Ecology 61:1228-1250.
Rotenberry and Wiens 1980a,
Rotenberry, J. T. and J. A. Wiens. (1980b). Temporal variation in habitat structure and shrubsteppe bird dynamics. Oecologia 47:1-9.
Rotenberry and Wiens 1980b; Wiens and Rotenberry
Wiens, J. A. and J. T. Rotenberry. (1981b). Habitat associations and community structure of birds in shrubsteppe environments. Ecol. Monogr. 5:21-41.
Wiens and Rotenberry 1981b,
Wiens, J. A. and J. T. Rotenberry. (1985). Response of breeding passerine birds to rangeland alterations in a North American shrubsteppe locality. J. Appl. Ecol. 22:655-668.
Wiens and Rotenberry 1985).
Recommended Citation
Jones, S. L. and J. E. Cornely (2002). Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.624