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Brown Birds in Virginia

Birdwatchers trying to identify avian species in parks and back yards typically focus on songbirds, also called perching birds, seed-eaters or passerines. Virginia has many brown songbirds with streaking, patches of other colors and a more grayish or reddish cast to their feathers. However, only a few passerines on the official state checklist are predominantly solid brown. In most field guides, these species usually are described and pictured in the latter sections of these reference books.

Mainly Brown Birds in All Plumages
- House wrens frequent habitats with grass and trees, like backyards and city parks.
  
  One of the most obvious brown songbirds to identify is the house wren, a common summer resident in Virginia. Male and female house wrens, both juvenile and adult, are dull brown overall, with somewhat paler undersides. They have darker barring on the back, wings and tail, as well as a paler, indistinct eyebrow line. Another summer resident in Virginia that is primarily all brown with few other markings is the Northern rough-winged swallow, which has a buff-colored throat and light undersides.
Partially Brown Birds with Other Secondary Colors
- Flickers are brownish overall with black, white, gray, red and yellow markings.
  
  In addition to cedar waxwings, various Virginia songbirds are brown but have patches of other colors as well, such as the year-round resident brown-headed cowbird, with an iridescent black body. Others have black-streaked breasts, such as the brown thrasher, which has a rusty-brown back and is found in Virginia during the summer. Conversely, the brown creeper has a brown back mottled with black markings and white underside, is found during the winter. Wing bars or eye stripes contrast with the brown feathers of birds like the willow flycatcher a summer resident that is mostly brownish-olive overall with whitish throat and wing bars.
Females and Juveniles with Brown Colorations
- Female rose-breasted grosbeaks are brown and tan, not black and white like males.
  
  Females of blue grosbeaks and indigo buntings are mostly brown overall, even though males are deep to bright blue. Immature birds of these species also lack colored plumage and remain brown until adulthood. Grosbeaks are larger with thicker beaks than buntings. Both species are regular summer residents in Virginia and other Southern states, where they nest and breed before migrating south to Mexico and Central America for the winter. In the blackbird family, several species commonly found in Virginia also have brown plumage in females and juveniles, including rusty blackbirds, which are winter residents in the state, and common grackles, which are found year-round.
"Little Brown Jobbers"
- Some small, brown songbird species like this sparrow can be difficult to identify.
  
  Birders sometimes whimsically refer to many of the smaller, indistinct perching birds as "little brown jobbers," or "LBJ's," because novices notoriously have difficulty identifying the different species. Sparrows with only subtle plumage differences especially present identification challenges for less-experienced birdwatchers, especially when the view of the birds is somewhat obscured by tree leaves or underbrush.

Animals & Science