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       Cultural Features > Coastal Habitats > Tributaries > Plants > Animals > Sapelo Island

Aves

Bachman's Sparrow Aimophila aestivalis

This furtive sparrow is most easily located by listening for its ethereal song. It occurs only in the southeastern United States; in Georgia, it inhabits upland pine woodlands and pine flatwoods. Due to loss and resultant paucity of its natural habitats within the Altamaha River basin, Bachman's sparrow is almost always found in pine plantation clearcuts and very young pine plantings where grasses are the dominant herbs. Sparrow presence is ephemeral in these dynamic anthropogenic habitats, and they are forced to emigrate when the grasses are shaded by growing pines. The species is known from both the Upper and Lower Coastal Plains, and has been recorded from ten areas in nine quads and five counties within the study area.