The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida)

Keys to Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida) management include providing grasslands with a shrub or forb component or shrub-dominated edge habitat, which includes dense grass and moderately high litter cover, and avoiding disturbances that completely eliminate woody vegetation. Clay-colored Sparrows have been reported to use habitats with 20–186 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 3–50 cm visual obstruction reading, 15–74 percent grass cover, 5–23 percent forb cover, less than 30 percent shrub cover, 1–20 percent bare ground, 10–63 percent litter cover, and less than or equal to 5 cm litter depth.