White-crowned sparrows breed primarily in northern Canada and Alaska, but winter all across the United States. They’ve been known to fly hundreds of miles in a single night enroute to warmer climes for the winter. Like the white-throated sparrow, they have distinct black and white head stripes, but no yellow above the eye and no white below their beak.

Their songs are a varied arrangement of chirps, chips, and whistles, since white-crowned sparrows pick up locally learned songs from their environment during their first few months of life. There are several subspecies of white-crowned sparrows, each with its own range and migratory pattern. The one we see in Berea is most likely the eastern white-crowned sparrow.