The Chipping Sparrow Spizella passerina is one of our common breeding sparrows in Washington. As an adult it is pretty easy to identify, although the juveniles of all of the Spizella genus of sparrows are difficult. Note the clear breast, the dark eyeline, the rufous cap, and the relatively small bill for a sparrow.
Chipping Sparrows generally like open areas with some trees or bushes for breeding, and in the fall they often congregate into very large flocks of mixed sparrow species. Here we often see these flocks at higher elevations after breeding season when they seem to follow the food supply with later hatching insects at higher elevations.
These were one of the first sparrow species I learned to identify when I started birding, and so have a special place in my birding memories.
Good birding.
