LeConte's Sparrow
Learn to identify the LeConte's Sparrow by ear. Master the "tss-ip tss-ip tssss" phrase and tell it apart from similar species.
What the LeConte's Sparrow sounds like
A faint, insectlike buzz mixed with thin chips, often delivered from a low stalk. It can sound so wiry and weak that it seems to drift in and out of the grass.
How to tell it apart
Where you'll hear it
LeConte's Sparrow breeds in the northern Great Plains, upper Midwest, and across southern Canada. It winters mainly along the Gulf Coast and in the southeastern United States, often in dense grassy fields and marshy cover.
Look for it in damp prairies, sedge meadows, grassy marsh edges, and weedy fields with thick ground cover. It likes places where last year’s dead grasses still form a tangled, protective blanket.
Spring migrants are easiest to find when males give their thin, insectlike songs from low perches. In fall and winter, it becomes even more secretive, usually detected only when it flushes from underfoot and drops right back into cover.
How to recognize it by sight
LeConte's Sparrow is a tiny, secretive grassland sparrow with a warm orange face, a pale buff chest, and a back striped like dry prairie grass. Most of the time it stays hidden low in the stems, then pops up for a moment and melts away again.