The birds of “Discovery”—Golden-crowned Sparrow

This is the tenth in a series of posts focused on the birds featured in my new novel, Discovery. Look for another one each week.

Wikipedia—that font of all knowledge—tells us that the number of miners who found gold during the Klondike Gold Rush in western Canada numbered no more than 4,000. A paltry few hundred got rich for their efforts. Ironically, maybe, Golden-crowned Sparrows watched it all go down. And they had a comment about the madness: a plaintive three-note song that the miners came to interpret as “no gold here,” or, as if in sympathy for the wasted labor of a good many, “I’m so tired.” The sparrow’s forehead was as close as the vast majority of miners came to striking the mother lode.

Finding facts about the Golden-crowned Sparrow is almost as difficult as discovering gold in the Klondike. If you visit https://allaboutbirds.org—and I strongly recommend you do—you’ll learn that this robust sparrow is among the songbirds we know the least about. It provides a research opening for an enterprising grad student.

Although it rarely ranges as far east as Colorado and even the southwest corner of Kansas as well as much of Texas, Golden-crowned Sparrows reside mostly in California during the winter. Like many other migratory birds, they breed on the tundra, where, in addition to spending time with family and friends, they apparently enjoy taunting human beings who dream of getting rich quick.

They also seem to be a bit ambivalent about their breeding grounds. They’re not like the other bird species who populate the tundra during the summer to make sure their species keep going for another year. Golden-crowned Sparrows leave earlier and stay away longer, taking in that California vibe.

I’m not one to gossip, but there’s a rumor—actually much more than a rumor—that Golden-crowned Sparrows and White-crowned Sparrows have been engaging in some hanky-panky. And there are photos! Not of the actual hanky-panky but of the hybrid offspring. You’ll find them at https://ebird.org/species/x00053.

So we’ve established that Golden-crowned Sparrows were not a favorite of Klondike miners. They like California in the winter. And at least some of them mess around on the tundra with White-crowned Sparrows in the summer. Aside from their affinity for California in the winter and their affinity for birds not of their species, we don’t know that much.

A few other tidbits have come to light over the years. For example, Golden-crowned Sparrows:

• Like many kinds of seeds as well as buds, sprouts and insects
• Sometimes forage with White-crowned Sparrows in the summer, perhaps laying the groundwork for a liaison over dinner
• Build their cup-shaped nests on the ground or in low trees or shrubs
• Assign the gathering of nest material to the female
• Leave it to the male to tag along with the female, encouraging her by singing, “I’m so tired.”
• Form monogamous pairs
• Have been seen cheating
• Have lots of predators to watch out for, including feral cats. several kinds of hawk, owls, shrikes and one species of ground squirrel

It’s a dangerous world out there. Maybe that’s why Golden-crowned Sparrows seek a little fun where they can find it.