Its wings are short, rounded, and brown and lack wingbars, or a line of feathers of a contrasting color in the middle of the bird's wing. The sparrow's tail is long, brown, and rounded. The face and supercilium (the area above the eye) are gray with a brown or rufous streak extending from each eye and a thick black streak on each cheek. The crown ranges from rufous to chestnut, a feature which gives it its common name, and some subspecies have a gray streak running through the center of the crown. The bill is yellow and cone-shaped. The sparrow's throat is white with a dark stripe. Its legs and feet are pink-gray. Both sexes are similar in appearance, but the juvenile rufous-crowned sparrow has a brown crown and numerous streaks on its breast and flanks during the spring and autumn. The song is a short, fast, bubbling series of chip notes that can accelerate near the end, and the calls include a nasal chur and a thin tsi. When threatened or separated from its mate, the sparrow makes a dear-dear-dear call. Distribution and habitat This bird is found in the southwestern United States and Mexico from sea level up to , though it tends to be found between . It lives in California, southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, Texas, and central Oklahoma south along Baja California and in western Mexico to southern Puebla and Oaxaca. In the midwestern United States, the sparrow is found as far east as a small part of western Arkansas, and also in a small region of northeastern Kansas, its most northeastern habitat. The range of this species is discontinuous and is made up of many small, isolated populations. The rufous-crowned sparrow is a non-migratory species, though the mountain subspecies are known to descend to lower elevations during severe winters. Male sparrows maintain and defend their territories throughout the year. This sparrow is found in open oak woodlands and dry uplands with grassy vegetation and bushes. It is often found near rocky outcroppings. The species is also known from coastal scrublands and chaparral areas. The rufous-crowned sparrow thrives in open areas cleared by burning. Ecology and behavior The average territory size of rufous-crowned sparrows in the chaparral of California ranges from to . The density of territories varies by habitat, including 2.5 to 5.8 territories per of three- to five-year-old burned chaparral to 3.9 to