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Historic Status

It was Oliver L. Austin, Jr., from the Austin Ornithological Research Station in Wellfleet (located on the site of what is today Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary), who collected the first Clay-colored Sparrow in Massachusetts when two were taken in North Eastham on September 20, 1930 (Austin 1931). Many more sightings over the next two decades supported the speculation that a breeding range expansion was taking place in Ontario, and that there were possibly many more individuals passing through Massachusetts in migration than were being recorded. By the late 1960s, the first singing male Clay-colored Sparrows appeared in Massachusetts, signifying that breeding attempts might not be that far behind (Veit & Petersen 1993).

Atlas 1 Distribution

Clay-colored Sparrows had never nested in Massachusetts when the Atlas 1 surveys began, but their increasing rate of springtime appearances in the state was beginning to increasingly raise suspicions. The irregular occurrence of singing males that often presages the addition of a new species to a region’s list of breeding birds continued through the inter-Atlas period until eventually there was some activity that suggested more than a flirtation with the state.

Atlas 2 Distribution and Change

In both summer and winter, Massachusetts birders witnessed an increase in Clay-colored Sparrow occurrences. Atlas 2 finally gave the species an opportunity to have the spotlight. Five records during the Atlas period, 4 of them from Cape Cod, ultimately included a breeding Confirmation at the Massachusetts Military Reservation when on June 21, 2007, a nest with young was reported.

Atlas 1 Map

Atlas 2 Map

Atlas Change Map