Another nice sparrow that we get here in the winter is the White-crowned Sparrow. This one is not as common as the White-throated but you might get them coming to your feeders if the habitat is right.
You’ll need to put sunflower seeds and millet out on the ground or a low platform feeder and have some brushy areas nearby to attract these birds.
As with the Juncos and white-throated sparrows, the White-crowned arrive around September and depart around March. These birds fly far up into Canada to breed.
White-crowned sparrows are striking in their colors even as they blend in with the browns of the winter landscape. Click on the photos below to see full size.
Here’s a cool fact from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology:
A young male White-crowned Sparrow learns the basics of the song it will sing as an adult during the first two or three months of its life. It does not learn directly from its father, but rather from the generalized song environment of its natal neighborhood. The oldest recorded White-crowned Sparrow was 13 years 4 months old.