The Ipswich Sparrow is a wholly Canadian bird with almost the entire world wide population breeding on Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. A few breed in the coastal sand dunes of Nova Scotia.

There are some folks who think the Ipswich Sparrow and the Savannah Sparrow are the same bird. I suspect that these folks have never gone into the field to study the bird. The Ipswich Sparrow has been studied by experts and the results published with the intent of separating it from the Savannah Sparrow, without success. It is larger than the Savannah Sparrow, is lighter in colour, has a different song and most importantly behaves differently.

I suspect the folks who stubbornly cling to the notion that the Ipswich Sparrow is a Savannah Sparrow are the same folks who named it after a coastal village in the United States. It should be known as the Sable Island Sparrow.

Ipswich Sparrow