The seaside sparrow (''Ammospiza maritima'') is an

American sparrow New World sparrows are a group of mainly New World passerine birds, forming the family Passerellidae. They are seed-eating birds with conical bills, brown or gray in color, and many species have distinctive head patterns. Although they share t ...

Description

Adults have brownish upperparts with gray on the crown and

nape The nape is the back of the neck. In technical anatomical/medical terminology, the nape is also called the nucha (from the Medieval Latin rendering of the Arabic , "spinal marrow"). The corresponding adjective is ''nuchal'', as in the term ''nu ...

, and a grayish-buff-colored breast with dark streaks; they have a dark face with gray cheeks, a white throat, and a short, pointed tail. Birds show a small yellow streak just above the eye. A typical seaside sparrow lifespan in 8 to 9 years of maximum. The oldest record of seaside sparrow was an individual male which at least 10 years old, at he recaptured, measure out the age and re-released during the banding operations of

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

Distribution and habitat

Their breeding habitat is

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

es on the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

and

Gulf A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodie ...

coasts of the United States from southern

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

to southern

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. The nest is an open cup usually built in the salt marsh on tidal reeds and

spartina ''Spartina'' is a taxon of plants in the grass family, frequently found in coastal salt marshes. Its species are commonly known as cordgrass or cord-grass, and are native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean in western and southern Europe, north ...

grasses. Females lay two to five eggs.

Breeding

Northern birds most often

migrate Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

farther south along the eastern coast of the United States. They forage on the ground or in marsh vegetation, sometimes probing in mud. They mainly eat insects, marine

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and seeds. Their feeding areas are often some distance away from the areas they choose to nest.

Conservation

One of the numerous subspecies of this bird, the dusky seaside sparrow (''A. m. nigrescens''), has recently become

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

, and the Cape Sable subspecies, ''A. m. mirabilis'', is endangered. Occurring in a restricted range but of uncertain validity is Scott's seaside sparrow, (''A. m. peninsulae''). The small isolated population that near

Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...

, south to the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

and ''sennetti'' subspecies may also have risk to endangered, those were formerly considered a separate species.

Call

The song is a raspy buzz that closely resembles a distant

red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird (''Agelaius phoeniceus'') is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and ...

Subspecies

Currently there are eight subspecies recognized: * ''Ammodramus maritimus fisheri'' (Chapman, 1899) * ''Ammodramus maritimus macgillivraii'' (Audubon, 1834) * ''Ammodramus maritimus maritimus'' (A. Wilson, 1811) – Nominate subspecies * ''Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis'' (A. H. Howell, 1919) -

Cape Sable seaside sparrow The Cape Sable seaside sparrow (''Ammospiza maritima mirabilis'') is a subspecies of the seaside sparrow, a species of bird in the family Passerellidae native to the United States. This subspecies is endemic to southern Florida. It is designated ...

* ''Ammodramus maritimus nigrescens'' (Ridgway, 1874) - Dusky seaside sparrow † * ''Ammodramus maritimus pelonotus'' (Oberholser, 1931) * ''Ammodramus maritimus peninsulae'' (J. A. Allen, 1888) - Scott's seaside sparrow * ''Ammodramus maritimus sennetti'' (J. A. Allen, 1888)

References

External links

*
Stamps
(for the United States) with a range map at bird-stamps.org *
Dusky seaside sparrow bird sound
at the Florida Museum of Natural History
Cape Sable seaside sparrow bird sound
at the Florida Museum of Natural History
"Ecological and Genetic Diversity in the Seaside Sparrow"
(pdf, 0.95 Mb) * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1588145

seaside sparrow The seaside sparrow (''Ammospiza maritima'') is an American sparrow. Description Adults have brownish upperparts with gray on the crown and nape, and a grayish-buff-colored breast with dark streaks; they have a dark face with gray cheeks, a white ...

Endemic birds of the Eastern United States

Taxa named by Alexander Wilson (ornithologist)