Black-chinned Sparrows are small in size with a thin notched tail. Their head, underparts, rump, and uppertail-coverts are grayish, while their lower belly is whitish gray. Breeding males have a black upper throat and chin; brown wings, tail, primaries, greater-coverts, median-coverts and back with blackish streaks. Females have duller, restricted black on their face and chin; juveniles and winter adults have gray throat and lores. Juveniles have paler crowns and underparts lightly streaked with brownish wash.

References cited in Species Profile

• Desante, D. F. and T. L. George. 1994. Population trends in the landbirds of western North America. Stud. Avian Biol. 15:173-189.
• Grinnell, J. and H. S. Swarth. 1926. Geographic variation in Spizella atrogularis. Auk 43:475-478.
• Johnson, N. K. and C. Cicero. 1985. The breeding avifauna of San Benito Mountain, California: evidence for change over a half-century. West. Birds 16:1-23.
• Newman, J. D. 1968. California Black-chinned Sparrow. Pages 1246-1247 in Life histories of cardinals, grosbeaks, buntings, towhees, finches, sparrow, and their allies. (Austin, Jr., O. L., Ed.) U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 237.
• Paige, L. C. 1990. Population trends of songbirds in western North America. Master's Thesis. Univ. of Montana, Missoula.
• Price, J., S. Droege, and A. Price. 1995. The summer atlas of North American birds.Academic Press, London.
• Tenney, Chris R. 1997. Black-chinned Sparrow (Spizella atrogularis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/270
• Weathers, W. 1983. Birds of southern California's deep canyon. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.