September 10, 2013

House Sparrow

House Sparrows.  Yep, they're an invasive species, but still interesting.

Fun Fact #1:  According to allaboutbirds.com, house sparrows were first introduced to the United States in 1851, in Brooklyn, New York.  Click here to read about that:   http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/house_sparrow/lifehistory .

Fun Fact #2:  The larger the black patch on a male house sparrow's throat, the more dominant he is in the pecking order of the flock.


Fun Fact #3:  The scientific name for the house sparrow is Passer domesticus.  Passer refers to a small, active bird, and domesticus means "belonging to the house".

House sparrows are extremely common in the lower 48, and are different than our native North American sparrows, such as the song sparrow and the white-throated sparrow.  If you look through a field guide at the sparrows depicted there, you will see the difference in body shapes between these two branches of the sparrow family.

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