Centronyx henslowii
The Henslow's Sparrow (Centronyx henslowii) is a small, notoriously secretive grassland bird, often described as mouse-like in its movements through dense vegetation. Measuring approximately 12-14 cm (4.7-5.5 in) in length with a wingspan of 16-19 cm (6.3-7.5 in) and weighing 10-15g (0.35-0.53 oz), it exhibits a distinctive flat head, short tail, and a subdued olive-green wash on its nape and malar region. Its upperparts are streaked brown and black, contrasting with a pale buffy breast finel...
This grassland obligate primarily inhabits tall-grass prairies, old fields, hayfields, and open pine savannas, preferring areas with dense, often patchy, standing dead vegetation at low elevations.
Their diet consists mainly of insects (grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, caterpillars) during the breeding season, transitioning to various small seeds (grasses, sedges, ragweed, smartweed) in fall and winter, foraged by gleaning from the ground and low vegetation.
Henslow's Sparrows are intensely secretive and diurnal, spending almost all their time skulking on the ground or low in dense grass, rarely perching conspicuously. They forage by walking and hopping on the ground, gleaning insects and seeds from the vegetation and soil surface. Males establish an...
The Henslow's Sparrow breeds discontinuously across east-central North America, primarily concentrated in the Great Lakes region (e.g., Michigan, Wisconsin), the Midwest (e.g., Illinois, Indiana, Missouri), and scattered populations in the Appalachian foothills and mid-Atlantic states (e.g., Penn...
Vulnerable
- Its namesake, John Stevens Henslow, was a botanist, geologist, and tutor to Charles Darwin at Cambridge University. - The Henslow's Sparrow has one of the quietest and least conspicuous songs of any North American bird, often described as an insect-like 'tsee-lick' or 'fitz-bzzzz. - It is notor...