Feeding Behavior

Forages while hopping or running on the ground, picking up items from the soil or from plant stems. Almost always forages alone.

Eggs

4-5, sometimes 3-6. Creamy white, spotted with reddish brown and gray. Incubation is by female only, about 11-12 days. Young: Both parents feed the nestlings. Young leave the nest about 9 days after hatching, before they are able to fly well.

Young

Both parents feed the nestlings. Young leave the nest about 9 days after hatching, before they are able to fly well.

Diet

Mostly insects and seeds. In summer feeds mostly on insects, including many grasshoppers, also beetles, caterpillars, ants, true bugs, and many others. Also eats spiders, snails, centipedes, and earthworms. Seeds are also important in diet, probably more so in winter, including those of weeds and grasses as well as waste grain.

Nesting

May nest in small colonies; numbers in a given area often change markedly from year to year. Male sings from a low perch to defend territory; sometimes sings at night. In courtship, sometimes sings in flight. Nest site is on the ground, very well hidden at base of weed, shrub, or clump of grass. Often placed in slight depression, so that rim of nest is even with level of ground. Nest (probably built by female) is an open cup of dry grass, lined with fine grass, rootlets, sometimes animal hair. Usually has partly domed back and sides of grass woven into overhanging vegetation, leaving opening at front.