We’ve seen a few American tree sparrows in recent weeks. They are the winter cousins of the familiar summer resident chipping sparrow. Both are small sparrows with reddish caps and unstreaked underparts. But unlike the chipping sparrow, the American tree sparrow has a black spot in the center of its breast and an unusual bicolored bill: yellow and black bill (compared to the all-black bill of the chipping sparrow).

The interesting thing about the American tree sparrow is that, well, it’s misnamed. Sure, the “American” part is true, since it’s a species confined to the North American continent. But to describe it as a bird of habitat dominated by trees is completely inaccurate.

The American tree sparrow nests in northern Canada and Alaska, in the region north of true forests, in open barren areas with small, scattered shrub-like trees. In the winter, the species moves south into southern Canada and the northern United States (east of the Rockies), where it prefers brushy areas near open areas. No matter how you look at it, the American tree sparrow is just not a bird of trees.

A similarly misnamed bird is the prairie warbler, a species that never is found in grassland, prairie habitats but instead nests in shrubby overgrown fields and powerline cuts in the eastern U.S. And the field sparrow often occurs in areas near where prairie warblers are found, though usually in slightly less thickly shrubby areas — still, not a species you’d expect to find in a “field.”

Some years ago we chuckled to hear the song of a prairie warbler as part of the soundscape of a scene in a Clint Eastwood film that was supposed to be in a prairie state. Apparently, the sound producer had picked the film’s background bird sounds based on their names, without the help of an expert (considering the budgets of most Clint Eastwood films, couldn’t they have splurged on the services of an ornithologist?).

There’s no excuse, though, for why so many commercials that show suburban scenes use the song of a Savannah sparrow as part of the cheery backdrop. Savannah Sparrows do not breed in suburbs; they prefer open grasslands, heathlands, and bogs from the northern U.S. throughout most of Canada. The name actually refers to the city of Savannah, Ga., where one of the first specimens was originally procured, not to a savannah-type habitat.

Apparently, producers of TV ads just really like their songs, or, more likely, are able to get the sound recording at a cheap rate.

There are a number of place-based misnamed birds. The Connecticut warbler, for example, is a rarity in Connecticut. The Cape May warbler never occurs in Cape May in any great numbers. In both cases, the first specimens ever found came from these locations and the birds were named before much was known about their breeding and wintering ranges.

On the other hand, the spruce grouse is pretty aptly named. But that’s a bird better saved for a different column, maybe one on “birds that exist but are famously hard to find.”

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