Plate 149 – Sharp-tailed Finch

While exploring the Great Egg Harbor in May of 1829, John James Audubon observed the Sharp-tailed Finch in large numbers. Outside of Great Egg Harbor, Audubon noted seeing the bird from “Texas along the coast to Massachusetts.” In some places, like Charleston, South Carolina, Sharp-tailed finches “were so pale as almost to tempt one to pronounce them of a different species.” Indeed this did happen when the scientific community split the Sharp-tailed finch between the Saltmarsh sparrow and Nelson’s sparrow. Both prefer to build their nests in some of the most vulnerable habitat in the United States: freshwater marshes (Nelson’s) and saltmarshes barely above the tide line (Nelson’s and Saltmarsh). Consequently, only a few hundred are the most Saltmarsh sparrows or Nelson’s sparrows that can be expected today to be found anywhere in North America (see eBird Checklist S72293642).