Eurasian Tree Sparrow
To enable bird watching to be a more fruitful experience, we'll be showcasing varieties of birds both common and uncommon on this site. Feel free to share your anecdotes on your encounters with these unique creatures as we feature each one on a monthly basis. Kindly email your experiences to birdsel@yahoo.com and we'll post them as part of the site.
To start off the series, we'll feature birds commonly sighted in our gardens and around our homes.
Common Garden Birds Part 1: Eurasian Tree Sparrow
The Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) is a common sight in our daily lives as these little birds flit about our gardens and homes in search of food, nesting material, general socialising and marking of territories as birds do.
The Eurasian Tree Sparrow lives throughout Europe and Asia, and is also found in North America. Its scientific name comes from the Latin for sparrow (Passer), and montanus (of mountains), though it has adapted to the urban life and its habitation tends to be any nook and cranny it can find around your home.
Sparrows are usually gregarious, which means that they live in flocks or communities and generally feed on seeds, shoots, buds and insects.
Key idenfication features:
Adult (mallaccensis)
Adult (mallaccensis)
Whitish head-sides with isolated blackish patch (key diagnostic feature), crown and nape dull chestnut, small bib blackish
Juvenile
Duller; crown paler with dark markings on forecrown, ear covert patch and bib less defined, pale base to lower mandible
Size
14-14.5 cm
Voice
Song is a repeated series of call notes interspersed with tsooit, tsreet and tswee-ip notes. Calls with harsh chip and chissip, sharp tet and metallic tsooit, tsreet and tswee-ip
Habitat
Urban areas, human habitation up to 1,830m
Nest & Eggs
Pad, in hole in building or tree; 3-6 eggs, fairly glossy, pale bluish white, spotted, flecked and streaked brown and grey-brown (19.2mmx14.2mm)
It breeds all year round.
Source & Reference
Robson, C (2000) A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia, Plate 101: 1185
