Home > Illustration > Wildlife > Birds > Songbirds > Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Swamp Sparrow full color illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The Swamp Sparrow was completed on 11.11.2011. It was yet another drawing for a series of signs/brochures for an as yet solidified project. It's strange perhaps moving forward with a project that could, conceivably, never happen. But the proposed list of drawings - all songbirds - were bird I'd probably have drawn at some point anyway, so I decided to just go ahead and draw them That way, as the project develops, I will have all them done already and can work on other things. The drawing is based on a photo by Les Piccolo.

Information about the Swamp Sparrow:

The Swamp Sparrow is a medium sized songbird of the Emberizidae family. They are native to much of the northeastern parts of North America and Canada. They are found, as the name implies, in swamps. But they are also found in a variety of other environments including forests, city parks and neighborhoods and open meadows, bogs and brushy, overgrown fields. These birds are about 4.7–5.5 inches in length (12–14 cm) with a wingspan of 7.1–7.5 inches (18–19 cm) and weighing about 0.4–0.8 ounces (11–24 grams.) They are opportunistic feeders, foraging near the water's edge. They'll eat various insects, along with plant materials like berries and seed, and will occasionally feed on aquatic invertebrates too, which they catch by actually placing their heads below the surface of the water.