Nelson's Sparrow

 

A colorful standout in a family of mostly streaky brown birds, Nelson’s Sparrows have bold yellow-orange faces, gray cheeks, and a neat band of yellow across a finely streaked breast.

These notably short-tailed sparrows are furtive creatures, spending most of their time on or near the ground in dense marsh vegetation. They breed mainly in marshes in the northern Great Plains and along the northern Atlantic Coast. In winter they occur in saltmarshes alongside the very similar Saltmarsh Sparrow—the two were considered the same species until 1998.Cornell All About Birds