Sparrows reward a fixed order of questions: body type first, then breast (streaked or plain), then head pattern, with habitat and season as tiebreakers. Work the sequence and the wall comes down.
Decide this before anything else.
Robin-ish, bold blocks of color, kicks noisily through leaf litter. Two here: Spotted and Green-tailed.
Slate or dark hood, pink bill, flashes white outer tail feathers as winter flocks flush off the ground.
Everything else. Now the real work: is the breast streaked or plain? That one call halves the field.
Tap through to a name.
The full key — follow the arrows to a name.
The one call that halves the problem.
The 12 you'll actually sort through. Amber box = the clinching mark.
Junco hyemalis
Ground-feeding winter flocks under feeders and brush; breeds up in the mountains.
Melospiza melodia
Your default streaky sparrow near water, and the most-reported sparrow in the county. Year-round.
Pipilo maculatus
Rummages noisily in leaf litter with a double-scratch hop. Year-round on the benches.
Zonotrichia leucophrys
Your default "clean" sparrow through the cold months; loose flocks. Scan them for the scarce Zonotrichia below.
Spizella passerina
Small, slim, clean; long dry trill. The black eyeline separates it from its winter look-alike.
Melospiza lincolnii
Countywide numbers peak in summer from montane willow bogs in the Wasatch; on the valley floor you'll mostly meet it in migration.
Spizella breweri
A sagebrush obligate; long, complex buzzy trills give it away where the plumage won't. Fairly common in that habitat, thinner elsewhere.
Passerella iliaca
The summer peak is Slate-colored breeders in high willow; on the valley floor it's a migration and winter thicket bird. Kicks litter like a small towhee.
Pipilo chlorurus
Cat-like mewing call from mountain sagebrush and manzanita, May–Sep. Locally common up high even though the countywide figure is modest.
Chondestes grammacus
Unmistakable once you see the face; breeds and passes through open country, spring through early fall.
Pooecetes gramineus
Tail flash like a junco, but streaked — the combination sorts it fast. Mostly a migrant here.
Passerculus sandwichensis
Streaky but "clean," runs through short grass. Thinner than you'd expect — a migration bird here more than a fixture.
Real, but under ~1.5% of checklists. Worth knowing, not worth expecting.
Zonotrichia querula
A winter scan-the-flock prize — check White-crowned and junco groups. The most likely of the winter rarities.
Spizelloides arborea
The winter "Chipping look-alike" — but no commoner here than Harris's or White-throated, so treat it as a good winter find, not a default.
Zonotrichia albicollis
The classic rarity hiding in plain sight inside a White-crowned flock. Annual in small numbers.
Zonotrichia atricapilla
Another winter Zonotrichia to pull from the flock; scarcer and drabber than White-throated.
Ammodramus savannarum
A very local grassland breeder; its thin insect-like buzz is often the only clue. Easily missed.
Melospiza georgiana
A rare winter bird of cattail and wet margins — worth checking marshy edges in the cold months.
Artemisiospiza nevadensis
Sagebrush-fringe specialist of the county's arid west. Genuinely scarce countywide — the effort caveat cuts hardest here, since its habitat is thinly birded.
Amphispiza bilineata
A desert bird grazing the county's dry edges — striking, but a genuine find here rather than a species to expect.
Calamospiza melanocorys
An irregular open-country wanderer — some years present, some years not.
Where the LBJ wall actually is.
Song vs Lincoln's vs Savannah
All streaked. Song: heavy blurry streaks, a bold central spot, long pumping tail, by water. Lincoln's: fine streaks over a buffy chest band, gray face, dapper and shy. Savannah: crisp fine streaks, yellow lores, short notched tail, out in the open grass.
Chipping vs American Tree
Both wear a rufous cap. Season decides it first: Chipping is a summer bird, American Tree a (scarce) winter one, so they barely overlap. If in doubt, American Tree has a bicolored bill and a central breast spot; Chipping is clean-breasted with a black eyeline.
White-crowned vs White-throated
White-crowned is the common one. White-throated (scarce in winter) adds a crisp white throat patch and yellow lores, and is browner overall. Scanning White-crowned flocks for one is the classic county move.
Spotted vs Green-tailed Towhee
Both towhees, different worlds. Spotted: black hood, rufous sides, white wing spots, brushy foothills, year-round. Green-tailed: rufous cap and white throat, greenish tones, higher-elevation shrub in summer. No real overlap in a good look.
On the page in your field guide, not on the county record.
Not reported in Salt Lake County per the records-committee checklist — the field-guide neighbors to keep off your local shortlist: Abert's and Canyon Towhee (southern Utah / desert Southwest), Rufous-crowned, Black-chinned, Cassin's, and Bell's Sparrow (California / arid South), and the eastern-flavored Field and Clay-colored Sparrows. If you think you've got one, that's a genuine record to document — not a default to reach for.