Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Passeriformes > Emberizidae > Spizella > Spizella pallida

Spizella pallida (Clay-colored Sparrow)

Synonyms: Emberiza pallida
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The clay-colored sparrow or clay-coloured sparrow (Spizella pallida) is a small sparrow of North America. Adults have light brown upperparts and pale underparts, with darker streaks on the back. They have a pale crown stripe on a dark brown crown, a white line over the eyes, a dark line through the eyes, a light brown cheek patch and brown wings with wing bars. The short bill is pale with a dark tip and the back of the neck is grey; they have a long tail. Non-breeding adults and immature resemble chipping sparrows and Brewer's sparrows; they often form flocks with these birds outside of the nesting season.
View Wikipedia Record: Spizella pallida

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
15
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 4.83195
EDGE Score: 1.76335

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  12 grams
Birth Weight [3]  1 grams
Breeding Habitat [2]  Temperate grasslands, Agricultural
Wintering Geography [2]  Chihuahuan Grasslands
Wintering Habitat [2]  Chihuahuan grasslands, Temperate grasslands, Agricultural
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  20 %
Diet - Plants [4]  20 %
Diet - Seeds [4]  60 %
Forages - Mid-High [4]  10 %
Forages - Understory [4]  10 %
Forages - Ground [4]  80 %
Clutch Size [5]  4
Clutches / Year [3]  1
Fledging [1]  9 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  64,000,000
Incubation [3]  12 days
Mating System [7]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [3]  7 years
Migration [6]  Intracontinental
Female Maturity [3]  11 months 5 days
Male Maturity [3]  11 months 5 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No

Prey / Diet

Amaranthus retroflexus (rough pigweed)[8]
Axyris amaranthoides (Russian pigweed)[8]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Perdix perdix (Grey Partridge)1
Pholisora catullus (Common sootywing skipper)1
Spizelloides arborea (American Tree Sparrow)1

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
5Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
6Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
7Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
8del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0