Bachman's Sparrow

Peucaea aestivalis

Status: Vulnerable

The Bachman’s sparrow, also known as the pine woods sparrow, is striped reddish brown and has a dingy buff colored breast. It is shy, playing hide and seek in the grasses, but will perch on a small tree when it sings. It’s domed shaped nest is built on the ground near a clump of grasses or at the base of small trees. A understory of native grasses such as bluestems, Indian grass, switch grass, and broom sedge provide ideal habitats for these birds. Native bunch grasses allow the birds to easily move along the bare ground eating seeds and insects while providing cover from above.

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Bachman's Sparrow Nest - photo by John Carpenter
Bachman's Sparrow Nest - photo by John Carpenter

Habitat & Range

The Bachman's Sparrow is a year-round resident across the southeastern United States. This bird depends on mature open pine forests as habitat, as they typically build their nests at the base of a shrub, clump of grass, or palmetto. The seeds of these grasses are also an important food source for the Bachman's Sparrow, especially in the winter months.

Food Web & Energy Flow

The Bachman's Sparrow finds most of its food on the forest floor, carrying their finds up to low branches to eat. They eat mostly small insects during the summer, and seeds from the forestland grasses in the winter. This makes the Bachman's Sparrow a secondary consumer.

Relationship to Fire

Since the Bachman's Sparrow depends on bunch grasses growing on the forest floor, fire is important to maintain adequate sunlight and space for the grasses to grow.

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Conservation Status

The Bachman's Sparrow is found in many parts of the longleaf pine range. As illustrated in the map below, this species is considered under different levels of pressure in different states, but it is considered Vulnerable overall.

State level conservation status for Bachman's Sparrow. NatureServe 2020
State Level Conservation Status - NatureServe

Human Impacts/ Threats

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Land Use Conversion

Longleaf forests and the habitat it supports is being cleared or converted to use the land for other uses like houses, roads, agriculture, and even to grow different types of trees to sell.

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Fire Suppression

Many people think of fires in the forest as bad, so they work hard to prevent or suppress them. But longleaf forests NEED regular fire to support habitat for the species that live there!

Resources

Cornell Lab - All About Birds. Bachman's Sparrow

Environmental Monitor (2015). Longleaf pine loving Bachman's sparrow needsmore than isolated patches of forest to thrive.

Hero Journal

If this is the species you're going to focus on, describe it in your journal.

  • What does it look like?
  • What does it need to survive?

Try sketching the species you chose, using scientific drawing techniques.

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