Our fox sparrows are an even dark brown - almost charcoal toned. The breast
spots tend to be fairly distinct, usually with a central spot. There is
basically no face striping. They are larger than most Song Sparrows, and
definitely larger than Lincoln's. They have a faint eye ring. The most
distinctive feature is that the lower mandible (the bottom half of the beak)
is yellow.

Song Sparrows are very variable here, ranging from red-brown with white to
dark brown with grey. Head striping is usually quite visible. I won't
attempt to describe them too much because of their variability. They tend to
be much less skulking than Fox Sparrows.

Lincoln's Sparrow is very subtly distinctive. It is small, though many Song
Sparrows are no larger. While the overall color is similar to some of our
Song Sparrows, there are definite field marks to look for. The face is a warm
grey bisected by an eye stripe. There is a definite buff-colored whisker mark
edged in black. The breast has a speckled buffy fan with a fairly clear line
separating it from a whitish belly. They are quite agressive, especially
considering their size, and they tend to raise their head feathers to a peak
when trying to look bigger. Unlike Song Sparrows, I find that the Lincoln's
Sparrow has distinct colors which may even clash with each other (i.e. bluish
grey, buff, and redish brown) whereas regardless of the colors of the Song
Sparrow, all the tones seem to be well matched.

As for White-crowned vs. Golden-crowned, immature White-crowned Sparrows
always have a clear dark eye line. The central head stripe may be
ochre-colored, which may look yellowish. Winter and immature Golden-crowns
have darker cheeks, no eye line, and even immature Golden-crowns have some
gold tone (not orangey) in their central head stripe.

Hope this helps.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== MJCT_Hobbs at msn.com

----------
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu on behalf of Ivorybilld at aol.com
Reply To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 6:02 PM
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Try again: Newbie with Sparrow question-Backyarding

In a message dated 97-10-15 13:04:50 EDT, listproc at u.washington.edu writes:

<< Subject: Newbie with a sparrow question-Backyarding

This may be easy for most- well, here it goes anyways
How in the world can you tell the difference between
Fox Sparrows
Lincoln Sparrows
Song Sparrows