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Lincoln's sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii) is a small sparrow native to North America. It is a less common passerine bird that often stays hidden under thick ground cover, but can be distinguished by its sweet, wrenlike song. Lincoln's sparrow is one of three species in the genus Melospiza which also includes the song sparrow (M. melodia) and the swamp sparrow (M. georgiana). It lives in well-covered brushy habitats, often near water. This bird is poorly documented because of its secretive nature and breeding habits solely in boreal regions.

Description
Adults have dark-streaked olive-brown upperparts with a light brown breast with fine streaks, a white belly, and a white throat. They have a brown cap with a grey stripe in the middle, olive-brown wings, and a narrow tail. Their face is grey with brown cheeks, a buffy mustache, and a brown line through the eye with a narrow eye ring. Males and females are alike in plumage. They are somewhat similar in appearance to the song sparrow although smaller and trimmer with finer breast streaks.

Juveniles strongly resemble juvenile swamp sparrows with a streaky chest and not yet buffy breast, but Lincoln's sparrows rarely have a unicolored crown like the swamp sparrow.

Adult measurements :


 * Length: 5.1-5.9 in (13-15 cm)
 * Weight: 0.6-0.7 oz (17-19 g
 * Wingspan: 7.5-8.7 in (19-22 cm)

Taxonomy
This bird was named by John James Audubon after his friend, Thomas Lincoln, of Dennysville, Maine. Lincoln shot the bird on an expedition with Audubon to Nova Scotia in 1834, and Audubon named it in honor of his travel companion.

Subspecies
There are three known subspecies of Lincoln's sparrow. However, some authors suggest that M. l. lincolnii and M. l. alticola should be considered one subspecies because of their morphological similarity.


 * M. l. lincolnii is generally larger with more ruddy brown or gray-brown coloring and less yellow edging on dorsal feathers.
 * M. l. gracilis is smaller with more yelllow on dorsal feathers and broader dark shaft streaks creating greater contrasts in dorsal coloration. Its breeding habitat extends from the southern Alaskan archipelago to central British Columbia.
 * M. l. alticola, the Montane Lincoln's Sparrow, is the largest subspecies and most uniform in color with a mostly brown back and narrow shaft streaks on dorsal feathers. It lives in the central Rocky Mountains of Canada and the mountains of California and Oregon and breeds as far south as New Mexico and Arizona.

Habitat and distribution
Their breeding habitat is subalpine and montane zones across Canada, Alaska, and the northeastern and western United States, although they are less common in the eastern parts of their range. They are found mainly in wet thickets, shrubby bogs, and moss-dominated habitats. They prefer to be near dense shrub cover and their nests are well-concealed shallow open cups on the ground under vegetation. At lower elevations, they can also be found in mixed deciduous groves, mixed shrub-willows, and black spruce-tamarack bogs. They primarily use the ground and base of willows for foraging, whereas they use tall trees and willow branches for singing.

During migration, they live in thickets and bushes, particularly in riparian zones. They use lowlands such as the Great Plains and Great Basin, as well as urban and suburban habitats in the east. Their migration period starts between May 13th to 30th and lasts until August 20th to September 20th. Their southern habitats over the winter include tropical evergreen and deciduous forests, arid and humid pine-oak forests, Pacific swamp forests, and arid subtropical scrub.

Their wintering range extends from the southern United States down to Mexico and northern Central America; they are passage migrants over much of the United States, except in the west. In 2010, a Lincoln's sparrow was observed for the first time in the Dominican Republic, and there have also been several records of this species in montane regions of Haiti. However, the skulking behavior of this bird and their preference for densely-covered habitats makes it difficult to accurately describe the full range of this species.

Vocalizations
Lincoln's sparrow is a very secretive species; they are often not seen or heard even where they are common. Only the males are known to sing and their song is unique among the Melospiza genus. They produce a sweet, wrenlike, gurgling song with varied frequencies. First, there are often several rapid, high-pitched introductory notes, which then goes into a trill that starts out low, rises abruptly, and then drops. Similar to the swamp sparrow, the Lincoln's sparrow has a relatively small song repertoire with an average of 3.7 different song types per individual. However, their complex, multisyllabic song pattern is comparable to that of a song sparrow, whereas the swamp sparrow has a simple, single-syllabic song. They sing most frequently in the morning and only in the beginning of the breeding season before incubation. They most often sing while exposed on perches, as well as during flight.

This bird has two calls sounds. One is an aggressive, flat tup or chip while the other is a soft, high-pitched buzzy zeet. The latter in males is often followed by their song. The zeet call is generally used while under dense cover, whereas the chip call is used while exposed on perches to attract attention or during antagonistic encounters. Both calls are used in nest defense. They also have a distinct, hoarse, buzzing zrrr-zrrr-zrrr call sequence used for mating, during territorial disputes, and when mate-guarding.

Diet
In the winter, the majority of their diet consists of small seeds of weeds and grasses, but when available they will also eat terrestrial vertebrates. During the breeding season, they mainly feed on arthropods including insect larvae, ants, spiders, beetles, flies, moths, caterpillars, mayflies, and others. Adults typically eat prey from higher trophic levels such as spiders, whereas they feed their chicks greater proportions of plant material and lower trophic level prey like grasshoppers. They mostly forage on the ground in dense vegetation and, in the winter, may occasionally use bird feeders. They catch prey with their bill while hopping on the ground and typically swallow their prey whole.

Reproduction
Males arrive to the breeding ground in mid to late May and begin to sing in order to attract a mate. In early June, females build their nests on the ground under dense grass or shrub cover, usually inside a low willow shrub, mountain birch, or sunken in a depression in sphagnum moss. Their nest is a well-covered shallow open cup of grasses or sedges. Clutch size is typically 3-5 eggs which are oval in shape and colored pale green to greenish-white and spotted with reddish brown. One egg is laid per day, and females begin incubating eggs before the clutch is complete, while males do not incubate. Incubation lasts for about 12-14 days. Young are born altricial and leave the nest about 9-12 days after hatching, although they may be cared for by their parents for another 2-3 weeks. Fledglings are mostly flightless their first day, but their flying abilities quickly improve and by day six they can fly more than 10 meters at a time.

In Lincoln's sparrows, male bill shape is correlated with the quality of their songs, with declining quality as the ratio of bill height to bill width decreases. This impacts reproductive success because song quality influences female mating preferences. Males that hatch later in the breeding season tend to have bill shapes that are less suitable for producing songs that attract females, and thus, have lower reproductive success.

Book

 * Ammon, E. M. 1995. Lincoln’s Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii). In The Birds of North America, No. 191 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.

Thesis

 * Ammon EM. Ph.D. (1995). Reproductive strategies and factors determining nest success in subalpine ground-nesting passerines. University of Colorado at Boulder, United States, Colorado.
 * Baxter TSH. M.Sc. (1999). A foraging time-activity study of breeding songbirds in a successional white spruce community. Lakehead University (Canada), Canada.
 * Bennett KE. M.Sc. (2005). The ticks of insular Newfoundland and their potential for transmitting disease. Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), Canada.
 * Lynn K. M.S. (1997). Multivariate relationships between riparian birds and environmental variables. San Jose State University, United States, California.

Articles
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 * Andres BA, Browne BT & Brann DL. (2005). Composition, abundance, and timing of post-breeding migrant landbirds at Yakutat, Alaska. Wilson Bulletin. vol 117, no 3. pp. 270–279.
 * Baptista LF & Morton ML. (1988). Song Learning in Montane White-Crowned Sparrows from Whom and When. Animal Behaviour. vol 36, no 6. pp. 1753–1764.
 * Baptista LF, Morton ML & Pereyra ME. (1981). Interspecific Song Mimesis by a Lincoln Sparrow Melospiza-Lincolnii. Wilson Bulletin. vol 93, no 2. pp. 265–267.
 * Bennett GF, Caines JR & Bishop MA. (1988). Influence of Blood Parasites on the Body Mass of Passeriform Birds. Journal of Wildlife Diseases. vol 24, no 2. pp. 339–343.
 * Brakefield J. (1970). A Lincolns Sparrow in January. Passenger Pigeon. vol 32, no 4.
 * Calme S, Desrochers A & Savard JPL. (2002). Regional significance of peatlands for avifaunal diversity in southern Quebec. Biological Conservation. vol 107, no 3. pp. 273–281.
 * Cicero C. (1997). Boggy meadows, livestock grazing, and interspecific interactions: Influences on the insular distribution of montane Lincoln's Sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii alticola). Great Basin Naturalist. vol 57, no 2. pp. 104–115.
 * Cicero C & Benowitz-Fredericks ZM. (2000). Song types and variation in insular populations of Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii), and comparisons with other Melospiza. Auk. vol 117, no 1. pp. 52–64.
 * Contreras Balderas AJ. (1987). New Bird Records at Maria Madre Island Nayarit Mexico. Revista de Biologia Tropical. vol 35, no 2. pp. 353–354.
 * Crete M, Drolet B, Huot J, Fortin M-J & Doucet GJ. (1995). Post-fire stages of mammal and bird diversity in the north of Quebecois boreal forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. vol 25, no 9. pp. 1509–1518.
 * Edwards MH & Weir RD. (1972). Lincolns Sparrow at Inuvik Northwest-Territories and Common Starling at Whitehorse Yukon. Canadian Field Naturalist. vol 86, no 1.
 * Gochfeld M. (1969). Status of the Lincolns Sparrow in Jamaica West-Indies. Wilson Bulletin. vol 81, no 2. pp. 219–220.
 * Harrison RB, Fiona KAS & Robin N. (2005). Stand-level response of breeding forest songbirds to multiple levels of partial-cut harvest in four boreal forest types. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. vol 35, no 7. p. 1553.
 * Hendricks P & Pidgeon C. (1990). Savannah Sparrows Nesting in Alpine Habitat in Wyoming USA. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 61, no 1. pp. 64–66.
 * Hobson KA & Schieck J. (1999). Changes in bird communities in boreal mixedwood forest: Harvest and wildfire effects over 30 years. Ecological Applications. vol 9, no 3. pp. 849–863.
 * Hofslund PB. (1969). A Nesting Record of Lincolns Sparrow. Loon. vol 41, no 3. pp. 93–94.
 * Knopf FL, Sedgwick JA & Cannon RW. (1988). Guild Structure of a Riparian Avifauna Relative to Seasonal Cattle Grazing. Journal of Wildlife Management. vol 52, no 2. pp. 280–290.
 * Koopmann H. (1971). Lincolns Sparrow at Sheboygan. Passenger Pigeon. vol 33, no 4.
 * Lachance D, Lavoie C & Desrochers A. (2005). The impact of peatland afforestation on plant and bird diversity in southeastern Quebec. Ecoscience. vol 12, no 2. pp. 161–171.
 * MacKinnon DS & Freedman B. (1993). Effects of silvicultural use of the herbicide glyphosate on breeding birds of regenerating clearcuts in Nova Scotia, Canada. Journal of Applied Ecology. vol 30, no 3. pp. 395–406.
 * Marshall JT. (1988). Birds Lost from a Giant Sequoia Forest During Fifty Years. Condor. vol 90, no 2. pp. 359–372.
 * Raley CM & Anderson SH. (1990). Availability and Use of Arthropod Food Resources by Wilson's Warblers and Lincoln's Sparrows in Southeastern Wyoming USA. Condor. vol 92, no 1. pp. 141–150.
 * Reed JM. (1995). Relative vulnerability of extirpation of Montane breeding birds in the Great Basin. Great Basin Naturalist. vol 55, no 4. pp. 342–351.
 * Rimmer CC. (1986). Identification of Juvenile Lincoln's Melospiza-Lincolnii and Swamp Sparrows Melospiza-Georgiana. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 57, no 2. pp. 114–125.
 * Sandercock BK & Jaramillo A. (2002). Annual survival rates of wintering sparrows: Assessing demographic consequences of migration. Auk. vol 119, no 1. pp. 149–165.
 * Santillo DJ, Brown PW & Leslie DMJ. (1989). Response of Songbirds to Glyphosate-Induced Habitat Changes on Clearcuts. Journal of Wildlife Management. vol 53, no 1. pp. 64–71.
 * Saveraid EH, Debinski DM, Kindscher K & Jakubauskas ME. (2001). A comparison of satellite data and landscape variables in predicting bird species occurrences in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, USA. Landscape Ecology. vol 16, no 1. pp. 71–83.
 * Schulte LA & Niemi GJ. (1998). Bird communities of early-successional burned and logged forest. Journal of Wildlife Management. vol 62, no 4. pp. 1418–1429.
 * Steventon JD, MacKenzie KL & Mahon TE. (1998). Response of small mammals and birds to partial cutting and clearcutting in northwest British Columbia. Forestry Chronicle. vol 74, no 5. pp. 703–713.
 * Tramer EJ. (1979). Lincolns Sparrow Melospiza-Lincolnii New-Record for Costa-Rica. Wilson Bulletin. vol 91, no 3. pp. 469–470.
 * Wilson S & Martin K. (2005). Songbird use of high-elevation habitat during the fall post-breeding and migratory periods. Ecoscience. vol 12, no 4. pp. 561–568.
 * Wortman-Wunder E. (1997). Territory size in Lincoln's sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii). Southwestern Naturalist. vol 42, no 4. pp. 446–453.
 * Zink RM. (1982). Patterns of Genic and Morphologic Variation among Sparrows in the Genera Zonotrichia Melospiza Junco and Passerella. Auk. vol 99, no 4. pp. 632–649.
 * Zink RM & Blackwell RC. (1996). Patterns of allozyme, mitochondrial DNA, and morphometric variation in four sparrow genera. Auk. vol 113, no 1. pp. 59–67.

Lincoln's sparrow Category:Native birds of Alaska Category:Birds of Canada Category:Birds of the United States Category:Native birds of the Northeastern United States Category:Native birds of the Plains-Midwest (United States) Category:Native birds of the Western United States Lincoln's sparrow Lincoln's sparrow