Plate 139 – Field Sparrow

While exploring the Great Egg Harbor in the spring and summer of 1829, John James Audubon located the nest of a Field sparrow. The nest was “placed at the foot of a bush growing in almost pure sand. Near it were the plants which you see accompanying the figure.” One of the plants that Audubon identified near the nest of the Field sparrow is Calopogon pulchellus or what is known today as Calopogon tuberosus. Current common names for the plant are Common grass-pink and Tuberous grasspink. Audubon noted the plant growing in “sandy soils from Maine to the Floridas; I have not observed it in the more Southern or Western States.” The other plant that Audubon identifies close to the nest of the Field sparrow is the Dwarf huckleberry (Vaccinium tenellum). The plant also goes by Southern blueberry. Compared to current range maps, Southern blueberry must have been once much more northern than it is today.