The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. A small bird, it has a typical length of 16 cm (6.3 in) and a weight of 24–39.5 g (0.85–1.39 oz). Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, and males have brighter black, white, and brown markings. One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow is native to most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia. Its intentional or accidental introductions to many regions, including parts of Australia, Africa, and the Americas, make it the most widely distributed wild bird.
The House Sparrow is strongly associated with human habitations, and can live in urban or rural settings. Though found in widely varied habitats and climates, it typically avoids extensive woodlands, grasslands, and deserts away from human development. It feeds mostly on the seeds of grains and weeds, but it is an opportunistic eater and commonly eats insects and many other foods. Its predators include domestic cats, hawks, owls, and many other predatory birds and mammals.
Because of its numbers, ubiquity and association with human settlements, the sparrow is culturally prominent. It is extensively, and usually unsuccessfully, persecuted as an agricultural pest, but it has also often been kept as a pet as well as being a food item and a symbol of lust and sexual potency, as well as of commonness and vulgarity. Though it is widespread and abundant, its numbers have declined in some areas. The animal’s conservation status is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
The House Sparrow is typically about 16 cm (6.3 in) long, ranging from 14 to 18 cm (5.5 to 7.1 in). It is a compact bird with a full chest and a large rounded head. Its bill is stout and conical bill with a culmen length of 1.1–1.5 cm (0.43–0.59 in), strongly built as an adaptation for eating seeds. Its tail is short, at 5.2–6.5 cm (2.0–2.6 in) long. The wing chord is 6.7–8.9 cm (2.6–3.5 in), and the tarsus is 1.6–2.5 cm (0.63–0.98 in). In weight, the House Sparrow ranges from 24–39.5 g (0.85–1.39 oz). Females usually are slightly smaller than males. The median weight on the European continent for both sexes is about 30 g (1.1 oz), and in more southerly subspecies is around 26 grams (0.92 oz). Younger birds are smaller, males are larger during the winter, and females are larger during the breeding season. Birds at higher latitudes, colder climates, and sometimes higher altitudes are smaller (under Bergmann’s rule), both between and within subspecies.
The plumage of the House Sparrow is mostly different shades of grey and brown. The sexes exhibit strong dimorphism: the female is mostly buffish above and below, while the male has boldly coloured head markings, a reddish back, and grey underparts. The male has a dark grey crown from the top of its bill to its back, and chestnut brown flanking its crown on the sides of its head. It has black around its bill, on its throat, and on the spaces between its bill and eyes (lores). It has a small white stripe between the lores and crown and small white spots immediately behind the eyes (postoculars), with black patches below and above them. The underparts are pale grey or white, as are the cheeks, ear coverts, and stripes at the base of the head. The upper back and mantle are a warm brown, with broad black streaks, while the lower back, rump and uppertail coverts are greyish-brown.
The male is duller in fresh non-breeding plumage, with whitish tips on many feathers. Wear and preening expose many of the bright brown and black markings, including most of the black throat and chest patch, called the “bib” or “badge”. The badge is variable in width and general size, and some scientists have suggested that patches signal social status or fitness. This hypothesis has led to a “veritable ‘cottage industry'” of studies, which have only conclusively shown that patches increase in size with age The male’s bill is black in the breeding season and horn (dark grey) during the rest of the year.
The female has no black markings or grey crown. Its upperparts and head are brown with darker streaks around the mantle and a distinct pale supercilium. Its underparts are pale grey-brown. The female’s bill is brownish-grey, and becomes darker in breeding plumage, approaching the black of the male’s bill.
Juveniles are similar to the adult female but deeper brown below and paler above, with paler and less defined supercilia. Juveniles have broader buff feather edges, and tend to have looser, scruffier plumage, like moulting adults. Juvenile males tend to have darker throats and white postoculars like adult males, while juvenile female tend to have white throats. However, juveniles cannot be reliably sexed by plumage: some juvenile males lack any markings of the adult male, and some juvenile females have male features. The bills of young birds are light yellow to straw, paler than the female’s bill. Immature males have paler versions of the adult male’s markings, which can be very indistinct in fresh plumage. By their first breeding season, young birds generally are indistinguishable from other adults, though they may still be paler during their first year.
A male calling in San Francisco
Most House Sparrow vocalisations are variations on its short and incessant chirping call. Transcribed as chirrup, tschilp, or philip, this note is made as a contact call by flocking or resting birds, or by males to proclaim nest ownership and invite pairing. In the breeding season the male gives this call repetitively, with emphasis and speed but not much rhythm, forming what is described either as a song or an “ecstatic call”, similar to a song.Young birds also give a true song, especially in captivity, a warbling similar to that of the European Greenfinch.
Aggressive males give a trilled version of their call, transcribed as “chur-chur-r-r-it-it-it-it“. This call is also used by females in the breeding season, to establish dominance over males while displacing them to feed young or incubate eggs. House Sparrows give a nasal alarm call, the basic sound of which is transcribed as quer, and a shrill chree call in great distress. Another vocalisation is the “appeasement call”, a soft quee given to inhibit aggression, usually given between birds of a mated pair.These vocalisations are not unique to the House Sparrow, but are shared, with small variations, by all sparrows.
There is some variation in the twelve subspecies of House Sparrow, which are divided into two groups, the Oriental indicus group, and the Palaearctic domesticus group. Birds of the domesticus group have grey cheeks, while indicus group birds have white cheeks as well as bright colouration on the crown, a smaller bill, and a longer black bib. The subspecies Passer domesticus tingitanus differs little from the nominate subspecies, except in the worn breeding plumage of the male, in which the head is speckled with black and underparts are paler. P. d. balearoibericus is slightly paler than the nominate but darker than P. d. bibilicus. P. d. bibilicus is paler than most subspecies, but has the grey cheeks of domesticus group birds. The similar P. d. persicus is paler and smaller, and P. d. niloticus is nearly identical but smaller. Of the less widespread indicus group subspecies, P. d. hyrcanus is larger than P. d. indicus, P. d. hufufae is paler, P. d. bactrianus is larger and paler, and P. d. parkini is larger and darker with more black on the breast than any other subspecies.
Identification
The House Sparrow can be confused with a number of other seed-eating birds, especially its relatives in the genus Passer. Many of these relatives are smaller, with an appearance that is neater or “cuter”, as with the Dead Sea Sparrow. The dull-coloured female can often not be distinguished from other females, and is nearly identical to the those of the Spanish and Italian Sparrows. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow is smaller and more slender with a chestnut crown and a black patch on each cheek.The male Spanish Sparrow and Italian Sparrow are distinguished by their chestnut crowns. The Sind Sparrow is very similar but smaller, with less black on the male’s throat and a distinct pale supercilium on the female.
Etymology
The House Sparrow was among the first animals to be given a scientific name in the modern system of biological classification, since it was described by Carl Linnaeus, in the 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. It was described from a type specimen collected in Sweden, with the name Fringilla domestica.Later the genus name Fringilla came to be used only for the Common Chaffinch and its relatives, and the House Sparrow has usually been placed in the genus Passer created by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.
The bird’s scientific name and its usual English name have the same meaning. The Latin word passer, like the English word “sparrow”, is a term for small active birds, coming from a root word referring to speed. The Latin word domesticus means “belonging to the house”, like the common name a reference to its association with humans. The House Sparrow is also called by a number of alternative English names, including English Sparrow, chiefly in North America; and Indian Sparrow or Indian House Sparrow, for the birds of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Dialectal names include sparr, sparrer, spadger, spadgick, and philip, mainly in southern England; spug and spuggy, mainly in northern England; spur and sprig, mainly in Scotland;and spatzie or spotsie, from the German Spatz, in North America.
Taxonomy
The genus Passer contains about 25 species, depending on the authority, 26 according to the Handbook of the Birds of the World. Most Passer species are dull-coloured birds with short square tails and stubby conical beaks, between 11 and 18 centimetres (4.3 and 7.1 in) long. Mitochondrial DNA suggest that speciation in the genus occurred during the Pleistocene and earlier, while other evidence suggests speciation occurred 25,000 to 15,000 years ago.Within Passer, the House Sparrow is part of the “Palaearctic black-bibbed sparrows” group and a close relative of the Mediterranean “willow sparrows”.
The taxonomy of the House Sparrow and its Mediterranean relatives is highly complicated. The common type of “willow sparrow” is the Spanish Sparrow, which resembles the House Sparrow in many respects. It frequently prefers wetter habitats than the House Sparrow, and it is often colonial and nomadic.In most of the Mediterranean, one or both species occur, with some degree of hybridisation.n North Africa, the two species hybridise extensively, forming highly variable mixed populations with a full range of characters from pure House Sparrows to pure Spanish Sparrows.
In much of Italy there is a form apparently intermediate between the House and Spanish Sparrows, known as the Italian Sparrow. It resembles a hybrid between the two species, and is in other respects intermediate. Its specific status and origin are the subject of much debate.In the Alps, the Italian Sparrow intergrades over a roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) strip with the House Sparrow, but to the south it intergrades over the southern half of Italy and some Mediterranean islands with the Spanish Sparrow. On the Mediterranean islands of Malta, Gozo, Crete, Rhodes, and Karpathos, there are other apparently intermediate birds of unknown status.
A large number of subspecies have been named, of which twelve were recognised in the Handbook of the Birds of the World. These subspecies are divided into two groups, the Palaearctic domesticus group, and the Oriental indicus group. Several Middle Eastern subspecies, including Passer domesticus biblicus, are sometimes considered a third, intermediate group. The subspecies P. d. indicus was described as a species, and was considered to be distinct by many ornithologists during the nineteenth century.
Migratory birds of the subspecies P. d. bactrianus in the indicus group were recorded overlapping with P. d. domesticus birds without hybridising in the 1970s, so the Soviet scientists Edward I. Gavrilov and M. N. Korelov proposed the separation of the indicus group as a separate species.However, indicus-group and domesticus-group birds intergrade in a large part of Iran, so this split is rarely recognised.
- P. d. domesticus, the nominate subspecies, is found in most of Europe, across northern Asia to Sakhalin and Kamchatka. It is the most widely introduced subspecies.
- P. d. balearoibericus von Jordans, 1923, described from Majorca, is found in the Balearic Islands, southern France, the Balkans, and Anatolia.
- P. d. tingitanus (Loche, 1867), described from Algeria, is found in the Maghreb from Ajdabiya in Libya to Béni Abbès in Algeria, and to Morocco’s Atlantic coast. It hybridises extensively with the Spanish Sparrow, especially in the eastern part of its range.
- P. d. niloticus Nicoll and Bonhote, 1909, described from Faiyum, Egypt, is found along the Nile north of Wadi Halfa, Sudan. It intergrades with bibilicus in the Sinai, and with rufidorsalis in a narrow zone around Wadi Halfa. It has been recorded in Somaliland.
- P. d. persicus Zarudny and Kudashev, 1916, described from the Karun River in Khuzestan, Iran, is found in the western and central Iran south of the Alborz mountains, intergrading with indicus in eastern Iran, and Afghanistan.
- P. d. biblicus Hartert, 1910, described from Palestine, is found in the Middle East from Cyprus and southeastern Turkey to the Sinai in the west and from Azerbaijan to Kuwait in the east.
indicus group
- P. d. hyrcanus Zarudny and Kudashev, 1916, described from Gorgan, Iran, is found along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea from Gorgan to southeastern Azerbaijan. It intergrades with persicus in the Alborz mountains, and with bibilicus to the west. It is the subspecies with the smallest range.
- P. d. bactrianus Zarudny and Kudashev, 1916, described from Tashkent, is found in southern Kazakhstan to the Tian Shan and northern Iran and Afghanistan. It intergrades with persicus in Baluchistan and with indicus across central Afghanistan. Unlike most other House Sparrow subspecies, it is almost entirely migratory, wintering in the plains of the northern Indian subcontinent. It is found in open country rather than in settlements, which are occupied by the Eurasian Tree Sparrow in its range. There is an exceptional record from Sudan.
- P. d. parkini Whistler, 1920, described from Srinagar, Kashmir, is found in the western Himalayas from the Pamir Mountains to southeastern Nepal. It is migratory, like bactrianus.
- P. d. indicus Jardine and Selby, 1831, described from Bangalore, is found in the Indian subcontinent south of the Himalayas, in Sri Lanka, western Southeast Asia, eastern Iran, and southwestern Arabia as far as southern Israel.
- P. d. hufufae Ticehurst and Cheeseman, 1924, described from Hofuf in Saudi Arabia, is found in northeastern Arabia.
- P. d. rufidorsalis C. L. Brehm, 1855, described from Khartoum, Sudan, is found in the Nile valley from Wadi Halfa south to Renk in northern South Sudan, and in eastern Sudan, northern Ethiopia to the Red Sea coast in Eritrea. It has also been introduced to Mohéli in the Comoros.
- Distribution and habitat
The House Sparrow originated in the Middle East and spread, along with agriculture, to most of Eurasia and parts of North Africa. Since the mid-nineteenth century, it has reached most of the world, due chiefly to deliberate introductions, but also through natural and shipborne dispersal.Its introduced range encompasses most of North America, Central America, southern South America, southern Africa, part of West Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and islands throughout the world.It has greatly extended its range in northern Eurasia since the 1850s, and continues to do so, as was shown by the colonisations around 1990 of Iceland and Rishiri Island, Japan. The extent of its range makes it the most widely distributed wild bird on the planet.
Introductions
The House Sparrow has become highly successful in most parts of the world where it has been introduced. This is mostly due to its early adaptation to living with humans, and its adaptability to a wide range of conditions. Other factors may include its robust immune response, compared to the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Where introduced, it can extend its range quickly, sometimes at a rate of over 230 kilometres (140 mi) per year. In many parts of the world it has been characterized as a pest, and poses a threat to native birds.A few introductions have died out or been of limited success, such as those to Greenland and Cape Verde.
The first of many successful introductions to North America occurred when birds from England were released in New York City, in 1852. The House Sparrow now occurs from the Northwest Territories to southern Panama, and it is one of the most abundant birds in North America. The House Sparrow was first introduced to Australia in 1863 at Melbourne and is common throughout the eastern part of the continent, but has been prevented from establishing itself in Western Australia, where every House Sparrow found in the state is killed. House Sparrows were introduced in New Zealand in 1859, and from there reached many of the Pacific islands, including Hawaii.
In southern Africa birds of both the European subspecies domesticus and the Indian subspecies indicus were introduced around 1900. Birds of domesticus ancestry are confined to a few towns, while indicus birds have spread rapidly, reaching Tanzania in the 1980s. Despite this success, native relatives such as the Cape Sparrow also occur in towns, competing successfully with it. In South America, it was first introduced near Buenos Aires around 1870, and quickly became common in most of the southern part of the continent. It now occurs almost continuously from Tierra del Fuego to the fringes of Amazonia, with isolated populations as far north as coastal Venezuela.
Habitat
The House Sparrow is closely associated with human habitation and cultivation. It is not an obligate commensal of humans as some have suggested, as Central Asian birds usually breed away from humans in open country, and birds elsewhere are found away from humans.The only terrestrial habitats in which House Sparrows do not occur are dense forest and tundra. Well adapted to living around humans, it frequently lives and even breeds indoors, especially in factories, warehouses and zoos. It has been recorded breeding in an English coal mine 640 m (2,100 ft) below ground,. and feeding on the Empire State Building’s observation deck at night. It reaches its greatest densities in urban centres, but its reproductive success is greater in suburbs, where insects are more abundant. On a larger scale, it is most abundant in wheat-growing areas such as the Midwestern United States.
It tolerates a variety of climates, but prefers drier conditions, especially in moist tropical climates.It has several adaptations to dry areas, including a high salt tolerance and an ability to survive without water by ingesting berries. In most of eastern Asia the House Sparrow is entirely absent, replaced by the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.Where these two species overlap, the House Sparrow is usually more common than the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, but one species may replace the other in a manner that Maud Doria Haviland described as “random, or even capricious”. In most of its range the House Sparrow is extremely common, despite some declines, but in marginal habitats such as rainforest or mountain ranges, its distribution can be spotty.
House Sparrows sleep with the bill tucked underneath the scapular feathers. Outside of the reproductive season, they often roost communally in trees or shrubs. There is much communal chirping before and after the birds settle in the roost in the evening, as well as before the birds leave the roost in the morning.Some congregating sites separate from the roost may be visited by the birds prior to settling in for the night..
Dust or water bathing is common and often occurs in groups. Anting is rare.Head scratching is done with the leg over the drooped wing.
photo : Mihai BACIU
