Rufous-collared Sparrow: Tico-Tico

BirdNote^® 
Rufous-Collared Sparrow - Tico-Tico 
Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

         [Several bars of Tico-Tico no Fubá, sung by Carmen Miranda]

 Can you name that tune? Here’s a hint: Carmen Miranda – adorned with her signature fruit basket of a hat – danced and sang this lively samba alongside Groucho Marx in the 1947 movie Copacabana. 

         [A bar or two of Tico-Tico no Fubá sung by Carmen Miranda]

 The song is Tico-Tico no Fubá and, like Carmen Miranda, came to us from Brazil. Believe it or not, the song is about a bird. The Portuguese lyrics tell the story of the tico-tico, a local name for the Rufous-collared Sparrow. The Rufous-collared Sparrow is a handsome, familiar backyard bird found through much of Latin America. And like so many birds, tico-tico was named for its song.

         [Rufous-collared Sparrow song, emphasizing the tico-tico portion of the song]

Back to the lyrics: It seems the bird with the musical name, tico-tico, keeps coming back to the singer’s yard to dine on her cornmeal, piled in a backyard granary. There are plenty of earthworms and fruit to eat, but tico-tico prefers her dwindling supply of cornmeal. She offered it birdseed – and let the cat out to chase it – but to no avail. Tico-tico loves her cornmeal.

         [Rufous-collared Sparrow song]

So whenever you hear this memorable samba, think of that persistent little sparrow atop a pile of cornmeal. 

For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.

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Song of the Rufous-collared Sparrow provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  Recorded by T.A. Parker. Tico-Tico no Fubá sung by Carmen Miranda and recorded in the '30s.
© 2013 Tune In to Nature.org   October 2017 / July 2025
Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# RUFS-tico-tico-01-2009-10-01     RUFS-tico-tico-01

Note: The music for Tico Tico was written in the early 20th C. by Zequinha de Abreu (1880-1935) and the Portuguese several decades later by Eurico Unidos. A completely different set of lyrics in English.