Adult. Photo: Mick Thompson/Flickr (CC BY NC 2.0)
Artemisiospiza nevadensis
| Conservation status | Still common and widespread in Great Basin region, numbers probably stable. |
|---|---|
| Family | New World Sparrows |
| Habitat | Dry brushy foothills, chaparral, sage; in winter, also deserts. Breeds in brushy open country. In northern and eastern part of range, mainly in stands of big sagebrush; farther southwest, mainly in saltbush, chamise, and other low shrubs of arid flats. Winters in dry chaparral, open flats with scattered brush, deserts. |
Forages mostly on the ground, picking up items from the soil or from plant stems, sometimes scratching with its feet. Also does some feeding up in low bushes. When not nesting, often forages in small flocks.
3-4, sometimes 2-5. Bluish white to pale blue, variably spotted or blotched with brown, gray, and black. Incubation lasts about 13-16 days.
Probably both parents feed the nestlings. Young leave the nest about 9-11 days after hatching. A pair may raise 2 broods per year.
Mostly seeds and insects. Feeds on many insects, especially in summer, including grasshoppers, beetles, true bugs, leafhoppers, ants, and many others, also spiders. Also eats many seeds of weeds, grasses, and shrubs. Young are fed mostly insects.
Male returns to same nesting territory each year, defends it by singing from a raised perch. Nest site is usually in low shrub (usually in sagebrush or saltbush, depending on habitat), less than 4' above the ground. Sometimes placed on the ground under a shrub. Nest is a bulky open cup, made of twigs, sticks, lined with fine dry grass, weeds, sometimes animal hair.
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
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