31 Types of Sparrows Found In South Dakota! (ID GUIDE)

What kinds of sparrows can you find in South Dakota?

No matter where you live in South Dakota, you are familiar with seeing sparrows. However, many people are surprised to discover the wide variety of species near them.

Below you’ll learn how to identify sparrows by sight or sound. Make sure to pay attention to the range maps to see which ones live near you!

Here are the 31 types of sparrows found in South Dakota!

The range maps below were generously shared with permission from The Birds of the World, published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I use their site often to learn new information about birds.

#1. Horned Lark

Eremophila alpestris

Identifying characteristics:

Has a long body with a small bill.
Males have a black chest band, a curving black mask on face, and black head stripes, sometimes with 2 raised feathers shaped like tiny horns. Face and throat are either yellow or white, with white underparts.
Females are lighter in color, with a pattern, but lack a black mask and horns, and have pale yellow on the throat.

Have you ever seen a sparrow in South Dakota with “horns?”

If so, then it must have been a Horned Lark! Look for them on the ground in large fields with very short or no vegetation, foraging for small seeds and insects. Their coloration blends with the dirt very well, so make sure to scan closely, so you don’t miss one!

Horned Lark Range Map

Horned Larks are social birds, so they are often seen in huge flocks after breeding season. While they’re still relatively common, these sparrows have unfortunately seen a sharp decline in their population over the past 50 years.

These species’ songs are sweet, musical, fast, and high-pitched. Males either sing from low perches or 800 feet in the air while flying. Listen below.

#2. House Sparrow

Passer domesticus

Identifying Characteristics:

Males have gray crowns, black bib, white cheeks, and chestnut on the sides of their faces and neck. Their backs are predominantly brown with black streaks.
Females are a dull brown color with streaks of black on their backs. Their underparts are light brown. This sparrow can be distinguished by the tan line that extends behind its eye.

House Sparrows are an invasive species (originally from the Middle East) and now one of the most abundant and widespread birds in South Dakota (and the world)!

Range Map – House Sparrow

The House Sparrows compete with many native birds, such as bluebirds and Purple Martins, for nest cavities. Unfortunately, these invasive species tend to win more times than not.

In most urban and suburban areas it’s INCREDIBLY COMMON to see House Sparrows. They owe their success to their ability to adapt and live near humans. Unlike most other birds, they love grains and are commonly seen eating bread and popcorn at amusement parks, sporting events, etc. At your bird feeders, they especially love eating cracked corn, millet, and milo.

RELATED: 6 Tips To Help Stop House Sparrows From Taking Over Your Feeders

House Sparrows can be heard across the entire planet. In fact, pay attention the next time you’re watching the news in another country. Listen for a simple song that includes lots of “cheep” notes.

#3. Song Sparrow

Melospiza melodia

Identifying Characteristics:

Chest has brown streaks that converge onto a central breast spot.
On their head, look for a brown crown with a gray stripe down the middle and a gray eyebrow and gray cheek.
Back and body are mostly rust-brown with gray streaks throughout.

These birds can be incredibly difficult to identify due to their abundance and how similar they all tend to look. But luckily, Song Sparrows are one of the easier sparrow species to identify correctly.

Song Sparrow Range Map

Song sparrows are common in South Dakota, especially in wet, shrubby, and open areas.

Unlike other birds that nest in trees, Song Sparrows primarily nest in weeds and grasses. However, you’ll often find them nesting directly on the ground.

My favorite feature of Song Sparrows is their beautiful songs that can be heard across the continent. The typical one, which you can listen to below, consists of three short notes followed by a pretty trill. The song varies depending on location and the individual bird.

#4. Swamp Sparrow

Melospiza georgiana

Identifying Characteristics:

Medium size, plump, short conical bill, and long tail.
Both sexes have a gray face with a reddish cap, gray breast, gray throat, and a dark streak line behind the eye.
Reddish-brown wings.

Swamp Sparrows are seen in South Dakota primarily near water.

This species likes marshes with cattails or other tall reeds or grasses.

Swamp Sparrow Range Map

Look for them foraging and perching near the water’s edge, scratching up seeds and insects in brushy habitats. In winter, this species eats mostly seeds and plant matter. In spring and summer, they prefer insects. Their long legs allow them to wade in shallow water and catch prey.

These sparrows may visit your backyard to eat lilies or blueberries. Make sure you have some thick ground cover or brush piles for them to hide inside.

Males sing a simple slow trill from perches and can sing all day and even at night. Listen below.

#5. Vesper Sparrow

Pooecetes gramineus

Identifying Characteristics:

More round and chunky, small bill, and notched tail.
Both sexes have brown streaks all over, a white eye-ring, and white outer tail feathers.

Look for Vesper Sparrows in South Dakota in open grassy areas, like prairies, pastures, sagebrush, and meadows. This sparrow prefers not to be in long grass or wet areas.

Vesper sparrows typically spend all their time running and hopping on the ground, foraging on seeds in the grass or weeds.

Vesper Sparrow Range Map

These birds also like to take dust baths to get clean.

You may see Vespers singing from fences, posts, shrubs at any time from morning until night. Listen below.

#6. White-crowned Sparrow

Zonotrichia leucophrys

Identifying Characteristics:

Both sexes can be grayish or brownish with a long tail.
On their head, they can have black and white stripes or brown and tan. The head is peaked on the crown.
Bills are orangish-yellow or pinkish.

White-crowned Sparrows are found in shrubbery habitats with open grassy areas in the breeding season. In winter, they prefer weedy fields, thickets, and backyards.

White-crowned Sparrow Range Map

If you want to attract these sparrows to your backyard, use sunflower seeds. Just make sure the food is placed on the ground, as they won’t fly up to feeders. and having a brush pile will entice them to stay.

White-crowned Sparrows are known for their long migration journeys. This sparrow has been known to travel over 300 miles in one night.

Males primarily sing, but females on occasion will too. Their song lasts only a few seconds. Listen below.

#7. White-throated Sparrow

Zonotrichia albicollis

Identifying Characteristics:

Both sexes’ colors can vary; some can be more grayish or tannish on their chunky body.
Head is typically black and white striped with a yellow spot between the eyes.
White throat patch, gray face, and small bill.

Look for these sparrows in the woods on the forest edge. They enjoy scratching at the ground under leaves or picking leaves up and moving them out of the way with their bill.

White-throated Sparrow Range Map

This species readily visits bird feeders, especially in winter. Feed them sunflower seeds or millet and make sure some of the food ends up on the ground, as they won’t fly up to feeders. Luckily, I see these birds often at my feeding station! And having a place for them to hide and find shelter will entice them to stay.

To attract them to your backyard, use black oil sunflower seeds and millet in the winter.

White-throated Sparrows sing a high-pitched whistle that is easy to learn. Just listen for “Oh-sweet-Canada-Canada.”

#8. Savannah Sparrow

Passerculus sandwichensis

Identifying Characteristics:

Both sexes have a plump body, brown feathers, and a super tiny and short tail.
Streaked with brown and white underparts with a yellow mark above the eye.

Savannah Sparrows are widespread across South Dakota.

Look for them in dense grassy areas like meadows, pastures, grassy roadsides, and fields.

Savannah Sparrow Range Map

Unfortunately, this sparrow does not visit bird feeders. But you may spot one in your yard looking for cover in winter, especially if you live by a field or have a brush pile for them to hide inside.

Savannah’s Sparrows fly low to the ground and only for short distances. They are mostly seen walking on the ground foraging for insects and sometimes even running down their prey.

Males sing from perches like a fence. It starts with a few high-pitched notes, then a buzzy sound, and ends with a low trill. Listen below.

#9. Lincoln’s Sparrow

Melospiza lincolnii

Identifying Characteristics:

Medium-sized, small bill, raised crown feathers on top of the head.
Both sexes have a gray face with thin brown and black streaks.
Buff white breast with some light tan streaking.

Lincoln’s Sparrows are often found in wet meadows in summer, but they like pine-oak forests or tropical forests when they migrate south in winter.

These birds like to visit backyards that provide them with food and a place to hide like a brush pile. They’ll eat small seeds on the ground, like sunflower and millet, that have spilled out from your feeders.

Lincoln’s Sparrow Range Map

This species tends not to move while singing, so you should have time to spot one if you hear them first.

Lincoln’s are the most musical sparrow in South Dakota. Listen below.

#10. Snow Bunting

Plectrophenax nivalis

Identifying Characteristics:

Round bodied with a short thick conical bill.
Males are almost all white, with black on the back.
Females are white but have brown-streaked backs and brownish heads.

Snow Buntings choose frigid locations high in the arctic to breed. They build their nests in the deep cracks of rocks and use a thick fur lining to protect the eggs. They never really leave the nest, ensuring it stays warm, and the male comes and feeds the mother every fifteen minutes.

Snow Bunting Range Map

To get a good look at these beautiful birds, look for them, in open fields along the roadside during winter.

Males sing a warble similar to a finch. Listen below.

#11. Lapland Longspur

Calcarius lapponicus

Identifying Characteristics:

Small sparrow with a large head, long wings, and short dark tail with white outer feathers.
Males have a dark black face with yellow-white on the sides. Chestnut-brown patch on the nape of the neck.
Females are similar but lack black on their faces.
In winter, both sexes turn light brown and streaked but keep their dark face pattern.

Lapland Longspurs are sparrows, but they are in the longspur family (Calcariidae) because of the elongated claw on their hind toe. This helps them move over uneven or unstable vegetation easier and faster.

In the summer, Laplands are big eaters, eating up to 10,000 seeds or insects a day!

These sparrows breed in the cold arctic tundra, where males put on an entertaining display of song and flight. They do this by flying about 65 feet in the air and sing while flying towards the ground, which helps attract the females’ attention. In addition, males also perform a “Grass Display” in which they gather grass or moss to give to the female.

Laplands Longspur Range Map

Lapland Sparrows form large flocks in winter as they migrate south to warmer locations. Flocks are estimated to have 4 million birds. Look for them near you in winter in wide-open areas like farm fields.

Songs are very long and squeaky sounding. Also, the variation of notes makes it sound like there’s more than one bird.

#12. Dark-eyed Junco

Junco hyemalis

Identifying characteristics:

Smooth and soft-looking slate gray with a white belly.
Small pale bill, long tail with white outer feathers.
Dark-eyed Juncos have various color patterns depending on the region. So one by you could look different than the pictures above.

Dark-eyed Juncos are one of the most common birds in South Dakota. A recent estimate sets their population around 630 million.

You can easily identify these sparrows by how smooth their feathers look. It appears like they would be as soft as a chinchilla to touch.

Dark-eyed Junco Range Map

This species is found in pine and mixed-coniferous forests when they breed, but in winter, they are in fields, parks, woodlands, and backyards.

Dark-eyed Juncos like to visit feeders in the winter, but ONLY ON THE GROUND, where they consume fallen seeds.

Males sing a two-second loud musical trilling song that can carry over hundreds of feet away. In addition, both sexes also sing softer songs that are a mixture of warbles, trills, and whistles.

#13. Chipping Sparrow

Spizella passerina

Identifying characteristics:

Some are brightly colored with a rusty crown, grayish belly, and a black-streaked eyeline.
Others are paler with a brownish crown, grayish belly, and an unstreaked neck and belly.
Both sexes are slim with a long tail and medium-sized bill.

Chipping Sparrows are common across South Dakota.

Luckily, they’re easy to identify, thanks to their rust-colored crown. You’ll often see them at backyard feeding stations, eating black oil sunflower seeds and other seed mixes on the ground.

Chipping Sparrow Range Map

Look for them in the woods by grassy meadows. These sparrows are also common in suburban areas!

Chipping Sparrows have loud, trilling songs among the most common sounds of spring woodlands and suburbs. Their songs are long trill notes that they repeat over and over, almost sound mechanical. Listen below!

#14. Fox Sparrows

Passerella iliaca

Identifying characteristics:

Large, round-bodied, thick bills and medium-length tails.
Both sexes are typically reddish-brown (like a fox) on top and a mix of brown and gray on the head; the breast is speckled with brown and white on underparts and breast.
Bills can be yellowish or dark gray.

The coloration of this sparrow varies depending on its location. Types of Fox Sparrows include Red, Sooty, Thick-billed, and Slate-colored.

Fox Sparrows prefer to live in coniferous forests and thick scrubland when breeding. They rarely leave these covered areas in the forest until winter, when they visit backyard bird feeders to eat small seeds on the ground.

Fox Sparrow Range Map

Fox Sparrows like to kick the leaves on the ground, searching for seeds and insects.

These birds are so protective of their nests that they release a loud chirp call note to pretend they are injured to lure potential predators, including humans, away from their nests.

Males and females both sing, but the females’ song is shorter and softer. Just like their color differences, the Fox Sparrows song varies depending on the region. Listen for a series of whistled notes.

#15. Grasshopper Sparrow

Ammodramus savannarum

Identifying characteristics:

Both sexes are brown and tan, with a flat head and small orange-yellow mark by their eye.
Thick neck, a long bill, and short tail.

Grasshopper Sparrows stay close to the ground because they typically prefer running or walking to flying. That’s why you’ll find them where it’s flat, such as grasslands, prairies, and open pastures.

While walking in fields, be on the lookout for Grasshopper Sparrow nests! They actually make their nests on the ground in thick patches of tall grass.

Grasshopper Sparrow Range Map

These sparrows get their name from grasshoppers being a huge part of their diet. To feed their babies, they will catch a grasshopper, shake it until its legs fall off, and then feed it to their young.

Grasshopper Sparrows are one of only a few sparrows in South Dakota that sing two distinct songs. One is high-pitched, buzzy, and insect-like (featured below). The other is more musical and squeaky.

#16. American Pipit

Anthus rubescens

Identifying characteristics:

Both sexes are small and slim with a long thin bill. The tail is medium in length and dark with white edges.
Gray-brown upperparts and pale buff underparts. Their breast is light to darkly streaked.
In the winter, they are browner.

You’ll find these sparrows in open areas along the river or lakeshore foraging for food like seabirds. However, they’re also in other bare habitats like short grass plains, sandbars, and manufactured habitats like harvested fields and winter wheat fields.

American Pipit Range Map

American Pipits have a long hind toe (called a hallux) and toenail that helps them walk and search for food on the unstable ground like snowfields and mud. Sometimes, they’ll go into shallow water, to hunt insect larvae.

You can easily identify the American Pipit from the unique way it walks. They strut around quickly and jerk their head forward, similar to how chickens walk.

Listen for their song, which is a series of rapid “cheedle” notes.

#17. American Tree Sparrow

Spizelloides arborea

Identifying characteristics:

Both sexes are rusty colored on their round head. Their face is gray with a brown streak by their eyes.
The body is gray with reddish-brown, white, and black streaks.
They have plump bodies because of their fluffy feathers and long tail.

You will often see American Tree Sparrows in small flocks, hopping on the ground, looking for seeds in the grass or weeds.

American Tree Sparrow Range Map

In the winter, this species likes to visit backyard feeders searching for small seeds, like millet, that have fallen to the ground. Millet comes in most birdseed mixes, and many birds don’t eat it. So American Tree Sparrows are nice to have around because they’ll help clean up your feeding area.

American Tree Sparrows eat a lot! In fact, they have to take in 30% of their body weight in food and water each day. Unfortunately, that means going a day without eating is usually a death sentence for them.

Their song is a series of clear opening notes followed by a variably trilled melody.

#18. Brewer’s Sparrow

Spizella breweri

Identifying characteristics:

Very small, slim, and long, but size can vary from region.
Both sexes are short rounded wings streaked with brown, black, and white.
Grayish-brown, grayish underparts, grayish-white neck, light gray stripe over the eye with a dark eye-line.

The Brewer’s Sparrow is the smallest sparrow in South Dakota!

This bird prefers not to live in trees but rather in sagebrush, abundant in arid environments.

Some individuals live in high elevations. Interestingly, these birds are considered a separate subspecies known as the Timberline Sparrow (Spizella breweri taverneri) and look slightly. Their bills and upperparts are darker and the breast and face also have more contrasting colors.

Brewer’s Sparrow Range Map

Brewer’s Sparrows can be hard to identify because they look so “boring.“ Nothing stands out about them, and they are often called the “bird without a field mark.”

Males sing on high protruding perches to attract a mate and declare and defend their breeding territory. Their songs are long dry, trilling notes. Personally, I think their singing is so long and complex that it sounds like they should stop to take a breath.

The funny thing is once these sparrows find their mate, they start singing shorter versions of those songs. I guess they think they don’t need to work as hard anymore. ; )

#19. Chestnut Collared Longspur

Calcarius ornatus

Identifying characteristics:

Males have a yellowish throat and face, dark chestnut rust nape, black belly, and chest.
Females and nonbreeding males look similar. Grayish with blurred streaks on the breast and dark blurred marks on the cheeks and rear.
Bills are small, and tails are white on outer feathers.

Chestnut-collared Longspurs are sparrows, but they’re in the longspur family (Calcariidae) because of their elongated claw on their hind toe. This helps them move over uneven or unstable vegetation much easier and faster.

Chestnut Collared Longspur Range Map

You’ll typically see them walking or running on the ground, often bobbing their heads searching for food. You may see them in flocks of up to 100 individuals.

Chestnut Collared Longspurs are typically found in TexSouth Dakotaas living in shortgrass prairies where livestock graze.

Males like to sing on exposed perches, such as barbed wire, located around the prairie. Their songs are short and sweet notes, which can be heard below.

#20. Clay-colored Sparrow

Spizella pallida

Identifying characteristics:

Petite and slender body with a small bill and long notched tail.
Both sexes are light tannish on top.
Grayish bodies with multicolored faces, the crown is thinly streaked.

These sparrows prefer to live in South Dakota in shrublands and thickets. However, some populations are located in Christmas tree farms and other grassy areas with short, scattered pine trees.

Clay-colored Sparrow Range Map

Clay-colored Sparrows’ young leave their nest before they can fly. To get by, they hop on the ground for about a week, where the mother feeds them until they learn to fly.

Males sing to establish their territory, and they choose lower perches when compared to most other sparrows in South Dakota. Listen for a short buzzy song lasting 2 to 8 seconds, which sounds more like an insect than a bird.

#21. Dickcissel

Spiza americana

Identifying characteristics:

Males are larger sparrow-like birds with a black V shape on their throat, with a yellow breast and rust color on their upper wings.
Females are similar, but their colors are paler, and they lack the black V shape on their necks.
Both sexes have thick bills and short tails.

The Dickcissel has a unique look. At first glance, it appears that a House Sparrow and Evening Grosbeak had a baby!

These sparrows are found in South Dakota in tall hayfields, grasslands, or grazed fields perched on stalks to pluck seeds. They’ll also walk or hop on the ground, foraging for food.

Dickcissel Range Map

Dickcissels eat both insects and seeds during the breeding season, from grasshoppers to caterpillars to beetles. In winter, they eat primarily only seeds on migration, including grasses, rice, and sorghum. Males can eat over a dozen sorghum seeds per minute, and females are just a little slower than males.

These sparrows are known for the LARGE groups they can form. To prepare to migrate in the fall, they’ll form flocks numbering in the thousands. Then once they get to their winter destination, the flocks will be in the millions.

Although it can vary, the Dickcissel song includes chirpy notes that sound like “dick-dick-see-see-see,” hence how they got their name. Listen below!

#22. Eastern Towhee

Pipilo erythrophthalmus

Identifying characteristics:

Large sparrow with a chunky body, thicker triangular-shaped bill, and rounded tail.
Males are black on upperparts and breast, rusty color on sides, and white belly.
Females are warm brown on upperparts, light rusty color on sides, and white belly.

Eastern Towhees are one of the biggest sparrows in South Dakota.

Towhees like thick brush along the forest edge where they search for food on the ground under fallen leaves. They find their food by hopping backward and scratching the ground with their feet.

Eastern Towhees Range Map

You’ll often see these birds in your backyard if you have thick shrubbery or overgrown wooded areas. They’ll also sometimes visit bird feeders to eat seeds that have fallen to the ground.

Unfortunately, the Brown-headed Cowbird takes advantage of Eastern Towhee’s parenting skills. When female Cowbirds lay eggs, they’ll often find a Towhee nest and take out the Towhees egg and lay their egg inside. The Towhee sadly cannot tell the difference, so the female raises the Cowbirds young. In some areas, Cowbirds have laid their eggs in over half of the Towhee nests!

Males are the only ones to sing, but their songs have an easy mnemonic to help you remember their sound. Listen for a quick trill that sounds like “drink-your-tea!” Listen below.

#23. Green-tailed Towhee

Pipilo chlorurus

Identifying characteristics:

Both sexes are small and stocky with big heads and long tails.
Oddly colored sparrow with gray body, rust orange crown, white throat, black mark by bill, olive-yellowish on wings, back, and tail.

Green-tailed Towhees prefer to live in shrubbery forests, giving them the best place to forage on the ground and be protected. They are hard to see in the dense foliage, but males can be found singing from the tops of shrubs.

Green-tailed Towhee Range Map

Like many other sparrows in South Dakota, they use a scratch technique to search for food.

That’s where they hop forward and quickly hop backward again, overturning the fallen leaves to peck any seeds or small insects.

Green-tailed Towhees work hard to build their nest, but sometimes they use porcupine hairs inside the nests for added support, which is surprising and seems dangerous for the babies.

Only the males sing songs that are a few seconds long, with a mix of jumbled whistles and trill notes.

#24. Harris’s Sparrow

Zonotrichia querula

Identifying characteristics:

Large body, small head, medium-sized bill, and long tail.
Breeding adults are black and brown, with white upperparts.
Gray on the sides of the head, black on the crown, face, and throat.

This species is one of the largest sparrows in South Dakota.

Harris’s Sparrows like breeding areas with open tundra mixed with black spruce, alder, and white pine trees. They are the one songbird that breeds ONLY in Canada.

When they return to Canada, it’s too still cold to breed, and not much food available. So they seek crowberries which provide them with enough nourishment. They end up eating around 675 berries a day.

Harris’s Sparrow Range Map

In the winter, they migrate south and commonly visit bird feeders. They love visiting feeders filled with black oil sunflower seeds, millet, and cracked corn. Harris’s Sparrows also enjoy foraging near brush piles in backyards and using them for shelter.

The male Harris’s Sparrow sings more often than the female, and their songs are a few simple notes all in the same pitch. However, sometimes the song can be mixed with buzzy or hoarse notes as well.

#25. Lark Bunting

Calamospiza melanocorys

Identifying Characteristics:

Large sparrow that has a round-shaped and thick conical bill.
Males are black with a white patch on their wing and a bluish-gray bill.
Females and immature males are brown, black, and white speckled with thick light brown streaks on the breast and a pale white stripe over the eye.

Males are easy to identify because they’re almost all black, unlike any other sparrows in South Dakota.

Lark Buntings walk or hop while searching for food in open areas. But the interesting thing they will do is gallop on the ground when chasing a fast-running insect. Females were found to run faster than males. 🙂

Lark Bunting Range Map

Both sexes can be aggressive when other birds come into their territory. Males flick their wings, move their bodies, and ruffle their feathers. At the same time, females will chase other birds away from their nests.

Males can sing two different songs. First, pre-mate selection, they sing strong and loud trilling notes slowly which then speed up. Second, when the male finds a mate, he sings a much softer, sweeter, slower song from a perch or while flying.

#26. Lark Sparrow

Chondestes grammacus

Identifying Characteristics:

Large and long-bodied. Look for white tips on their tail.
Both sexes have a striking head pattern with white and black streaks and a brown patch on the cheek. White, pale stripe over the eye.
Their distinct blocky face pattern sets them apart from other sparrows.

Lark Sparrows breed in South Dakota in open grasslands with scattered forests nearby, like open woodlands and orchards.

Lark Sparrow Range Map

The males put on a good show to find a mate. He does this by hopping in a line, then tipping his tail up and spreading his tail feathers with his wings drooped to the ground, showing off for the female. Once a female is impressed, he’ll present her with a twig before copulation (mating.)

Lark Sparrows visit backyard feeders to eat seeds, mainly in the winter and only on the ground. In the summer, they eat mostly insects.

Males sing a song starting will a buzz, followed by a few clear notes, and ending with a trill note. Their song is very different from other sparrows in South Dakota. Listen below.

#27. LeConte’s Sparrow

Ammospiza leconteii

Identifying Characteristics:

Both sexes are small and appear chunky.
Coloration is brownish-pumpkin orange, with a black eye-line that thickens as it goes to the back of the head.
Eyebrow is brighter orange than the face. Face and breast are creamy-white with a tiny gray bill.

LeConte’s prefer to walk or hop on dense grasses in open marshy or boggy meadows. They would rather run if frightened because their flying is fairly weak!

LeConte’s Sparrow Range Map

LeConte’s Sparrows spend most of their time hidden under shrubbery on the ground, so they sort of act more like a mouse than a bird. It’s a shame because they’re one of the most beautiful sparrows in South Dakota.

Males like to sing from covered perches and sometimes will sing in flight. LISTEN BELOW!

#28. Nelson’s Sparrow

Ammospiza nelsoni

Identifying Characteristics:

Both sexes are medium-sized with a short conical bill and short tail.
Some are pale and orangish-looking, with gray on the nape and cheeks. Others have more contrasting, darker orange colors.

You will see the Nelson’s Sparrow in South Dakota in wet meadows or freshwater wetlands with cattails and reeds. During winter, they migrate south to saltwater marshes. These birds are incredibly similar to Saltmarsh Sparrows and were actually considered the same species until 1989!

Look for them foraging on or near the ground or making short flights. They eat a wide variety of insects, including spiders, beetles, other arthropods.

Nelson’s Sparrow Range Map

Nelson’s Sparrows frequently sing at night but will stop singing when another male approaches. They’re not territorial, but they might chase off other males when a female is present. They also follow females to ward off other males even when they’re not paired mates.

The male Nelson’s song is a high hissing sound, like a bird that lost its voice. Males and sometimes females sing to show their dominance, but they are not territorial. Listen below.

#29. Smith’s Longspur

Calcarius pictus

Identifying Characteristics:

Small plump sparrow with a notched tail.
Males are caramel-colored with a black and white pattern on their faces.
Females are streaked with white, tan, and black; the face is paler white, with a white eye-ring, and a small, thin bill.

Like most sparrows in South Dakota, they forage for seeds and insects off the ground. But the surprising thing they do is rip the arms and legs off an insect before eating them.

During the breeding season, you will find Smith’s Longspurs by the tree line in the wet grass meadows of the tundra. During winter, they migrate south to the contiguous USA.

Smith’s Longspur Range Map

Males and females are not monogamous during the breeding season. You’ll typically see them in small groups where males mate as often as 350 times in one breeding season with an average of two partners.

Males sing a similar song to an American Tree Sparrow, with short and sweet notes but some scratchy sounding. Listen below.

#30. Spotted Towhee

Pipilo maculatus

Identifying Characteristics:

Chunky body, short neck, and rounded tail.
Males are mostly black with white spots on the wings and a white belly with rusty-colored sides.
Females are similar-looking but are mostly grayish brown.

Spotted Towhees are often fleetingly seen while flying between patches of cover. You can also look for them hopping around fallen leaves, close to cover, foraging for food. They use the double scratch technique to find seeds and insects in the soil.

Spotted Towhee Range Map

This species is found mainly in dense, shrubbery habitats near the ground, including forest edges, overgrown fields, and sometimes backyards. They like to eat seeds on the ground under feeders when they’re not too far from cover.

Some Spotted Towhees have a song mixed with buzzy notes and a trill, while others only have a trilling song. Listen below.

#31. Sprague’s Pipit

Anthus spragueii

Identifying Characteristics:

Small, often slender-sized sparrow, with long legs and a small thin bill.
Both sexes are buffy white with dark marks on their back and wings. Their legs and feet are pale pink.

Sprague’s Pipit typically forages for seeds or insects on the ground, but they’ll also fly to catch insects in the air and eat them whole.

Look for these sparrows in South Dakota in tall mixed-grass prairies in the Great Plains during the breeding season. Then, in winter, they fly south to enjoy the warmth.

Sprague’s Pipit Range Map

The Sprague’s Pipit male likes to put on an aerial display to define nesting territories during the breeding season. They fly upwards to about 300 feet and then begin singing as they descend in a swirling pattern.

Males’ songs are quick notes that are high-pitched and buzzy. Listen below.