All species › Passerines › New World sparrows › Lark Sparrow
Lark Sparrow | Chondestes grammacus
Roodoorgors | Chingolo arlequín
The Lark Sparrow is a large sparrow of open, dry country in western and central North America that winters in the southern United States, Mexico and Guatemala. In the Caribbean it is a vagrant, with only a handful of records. Its bold head stripes and black-and-white tail are distinctive for a sparrow.
Voice
The song is long and varied: clear whistled notes mixed with trills, churring and buzzing phrases. The call is a thin tsip, also given in flight.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm, robust and long-tailed. The head has a distinctive pattern: chestnut ear-coverts and crown sides, a white central crown stripe and supercilium, a white throat and a black malar stripe. The underparts are plain white with a black spot in the centre of the breast. The upperparts are brown with dark streaks. The rounded tail is blackish with broad white corners, visible mainly when the bird takes off and lands. The sexes are alike. Juveniles have a duller, browner head pattern and fine breast streaks, but already show the tail pattern.
Confusion species
White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys also has a striped head, but in black and white without a chestnut ear patch, a grey breast without a central spot and a tail without white corners. Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis is smaller and shorter-tailed, with streaked breast and flanks. Streaky juvenile Lark Sparrows are identified by the tail pattern and the beginnings of the head pattern.
Habitat
Open ground with low vegetation and bare patches: dry grassland, pastures, roadsides and field edges with scattered bushes, and coastal and beach scrub. It feeds on the ground on seeds and insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A very rare vagrant to the Bahamas (including Abaco), Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. It breeds in southern Canada, the western and central United States and northern Mexico, and winters from the southern United States to Guatemala.
How and when to look
Records are most likely in autumn and winter on the northern islands, in grassland and on roadsides where other sparrows feed. On take-off the white tail corners are the first clue; photographs are the best way to document a sighting.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. In the Caribbean a vagrant with no regular presence.
Scientific name
Chondestes grammacus | (Say, 1822)
Say described the species in 1822 as Fringilla grammaca; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chondestes was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Chondestes is Greek, from khondros 'grain' and edestēs 'eater': 'grain-eater'. grammacus comes from the Greek grammikos 'of lines, striped', after the boldly striped head pattern. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bellefontaine, near the mouth of the Missouri River, Missouri (USA).