White-Throated Sparrow. Zonotrichia albicollis. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Wild Facts About The White-Throated Sparrow

ByChristine Species Guides

Quick Facts About White-Throated Sparrows

Scientific Name

Zonotrichia albicollis

Common Name(s)

White-Throated Sparrow

Animal Type

Bird, land bird

Diet

Insects, seeds, fruit

Found

Winters throughout North Carolina. Look for these birds on the ground or within a few feet of the ground in dense thickets along forest edges. These birds move quickly and rarely hold still for more than a second so can be hard to identify in the wild, especially when partially hidden by thick brush.

Description

Grows to 7 inches (18 cm). Streaked, brown bird with a sharply defined white throat patch and dark gray bills.

Two head stripe variations:

Form 1 has tan and white head stripes.

Form 2 has black and white head stripes

White-Throated Sparrow Images

Fun Facts About White-Throated Sparrows

Color Morphs and the White-Throated Sparrow

  • Both sexes of White-Throated Sparrows can be either tan-striped or white-striped.
    • Tan-striped birds have brown breast feathers and a dull tan crown stripe.
    • White-striped birds have gray breast feathers and a bright white crown stripe.
  • Compared to tan-striped birds, white-striped White-Throated Sparrows of both sexes:
    • Are larger overall than brown-striped White-Throated Sparrows of the same sex.
    • Complete their migration sooner than brown-striped individuals:
    • Exhibit lower levels of parental care during nesting and while raising hatchlings.

White-Throated Sparrows Like To Stay Under Cover

  • Despite being a fairly common wintertime bird in North Carolina, White-Throated Sparrows can be hard to observe in the wild because:
    • They prefer to remain near, under, or in dense vegetative cover when foraging on the ground and when roosting at night.
    • Their streaky, brown, white, tan, and gray plumage camouflages them very effectively against the mottled leaf litter in which they dig for invertebrate prey,
  • But the good news for casual naturalists who want to observe White-Throated Sparrows in the wild is that these birds stick close to their chosen territories.
    • In a study completed in Arkansas, scientists looked at the habitats that White-Throated Sparrows chose to roost in at night. They attached radio transmitters to 15 birds, tracked their movements, and analyzed the characteristics of the chosen habitats. They analyzed 324 roost locations and 146 daytime foraging locations and found that the studied White-Throated Sparrows:
      • Foraged within 100 m of the power line right-of-way where they were originally captured 95% of the time.
      • Foraged beneath thick tangles of Greenbriar 71% of the time.
      • Foraged most often in areas which had leaf litter 4 cm deep
      • Always roosted in dense tangles of vines, stems, and branches
      • Roosted at heights between 1-5 m off the ground 82% of the time (Gonzalez et al. 2023, https://doi.org/10.1676/23-00073).
  • So once you spot one or more White-Throated Sparrows in an area, the changes are pretty good that they will stick around that area, giving you a fighting chance to observe these birds over the course of many days.
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Christine
Christine is the creator and author of NowIWonder.com, a website dedicated to the animals and plants that share our world, and the science that helps us understand them. Inspired by lifelong exploration and learning, Christine loves to share her knowledge with others who want to connect with wild faces and wild spaces.
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