RUFOUS-WINGED SPARROW 917 



can do so without entering the territory of another pair. Even where 

 fairly common, however, most rufous-\nnged sparrows seem miusually 

 secretive when laying and incubating. 



Voice. — The rufous-winged sparrow has a wide variety of calls and 

 songs. The characteristic "location note" is a shrill, piercing seep, or 

 as C. E. Bendire puts it, "a lisping *tzip,' 'tzip,' frequently repeated." 

 It differs from those of such Spizellae as the chipping sparrow and of 

 most other sparrows in its somewhat higher pitch and loudness, and 

 its firmer, more metallic quality. The song is variable, one frequent 

 type being a monotone. More often the opening notes, commonly 

 three in number, vary in pitch from the closing series, and generally 

 among themselves as well. In any event, the song ends in a rapid, 

 almost trUled series of notes identical with the call and on a single 

 pitch. The opening notes are more widely spaced and seem to be 

 held a bit longer, but are scarcely more musical. The usual song is 

 thus much like that of a canyon brown towhee, but sometimes the 

 second of the opening notes is lower-pitched and sounds rather 

 different. One such song is rendered in my notes as chip burr chee-he- 

 he-he-he-he; another as tee yoor tee te-te-te-te-te the yoor being reminiscent 

 of the call of Say's phoebe. There are other variations, too. 



Altogether I consider the song pleasing, if hardly pretentious, but I 

 cannot scold C. E. Bendire for calling it "rather weak and monoto- 

 nous." While I admit that the bird is no musician, I think Dawson 

 (MS.) uses some poetic license in stating that "its sharp iterative 

 staccato notes" are "utterly destitute of musical quality." He 

 continues: "The song * * * is curiously like that of the Abert or 

 California [brown] towhee, lightened, quickened, and continued, 

 tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip, tsip." A less common 

 chattering note, much like a brown towhee's or a black-throated 

 sparrow's, of a tinkling quality, is possibly used only when the birds 

 are excited. 



The main season of song in normal (dry) years is from June or 

 July to mid-September. Singing may be heard at almost any time, 

 though I have not specifically noted hearing it in December. When 

 singing, the bird prefers a perch several feet up on top of a medium- 

 sized cactus or thorny bush. 



Field marks. — The rufous-winged sparrow resembles the chipping 

 sparrow on its upper parts, with its rufous crown and black-striped 

 back. The white malar area, however, is bordered above and below 

 by thin black stripes, separating it from the throat and cheeks; and 

 the line through the eye is rufous rather than black. Thus the head- 

 stripings resemble more closely those of the rufous-crowned sparrow, 

 which is found at higher altitudes, but the back and mustache-cheek 

 markings are more pronounced, and the whole bird is more slender 



