A Sparrow With A White Throat And Yellow Eyebrows

Pictured here is Zonatrichia albicollis, the White-throated Sparrow. It belongs in the Family Emberizidae.

You can see the white throat patch for which this species is named. Note the black, brown and white head stripes. They are another useful character.

The region between the base of the bill and the eye in bird anatomy is called the lore. This bird has a yellow loral stripe. To me, they look like yellow eyebrows.

So for quick field identification, if you spot a sparrow with a white throat patch, a white line down the center of its head flanked by brown or black lines, and yellow eyebrows, you are probably looking at a White-throated Sparrow.

This little sparrow is sitting in a young elm tree while he dines on its seeds. White-throated Sparrows like seeds of a wide variety of plants as well as many kinds of insects and their larvae. They like to live in forests and forest margins throughout their range where they forage for their food on the ground and in vegetation.

White-throated Sparrows spend the winter in most areas of Texas and migrate to the forested areas of Canada for breeding season. These photgraphs were taken in mid-March when the elm trees are about the only trees with green on them. The elms produce their seeds before they make leaves which gives the White-throated Sparrow something tasty to eat in a largely dormant forest.

You can read more about these interesting little birds at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.