House Sparrow

http://retiringwithlisadeleon.blogspot.com.es/2010/09/house-sparrow-female.html http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Female_House_Sparrow_2_(Passer_domesticus).jpg Just some examples to show how variable they can be. Just like people, no two are identical when studied closely.

They all have the white wing bar, but I'm talking about the full wing bar that extends across the whole wing. In all my field guides, they only have the wing bar that is only on 3-4 feathers, not all the way across.

They should all have that white wingbar, both males and females but it wears away very quickly in the females., which then look drab until the next moult.

Well I went and looked at a lot of pictures on Google, and some have a full white wing bar, but most don't. I can't find any descriptions that mentions anything about the white wing bar, so I guess it could just be a variable thing. Glad other people chimed in to help figure this one out!

I guess I'd call it a female House Sparrow too, even though that white wing bar isn't right. Nothing else it can be though.

Female House Sparrow for me.

Great! What is probably happening here is this is a first year Cowbird, and that is it's "mom" next to it. Brown-headed Cowbirds are nest parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in nests of other species, and the other species care for the young like their own. So although the Cowbird is in adult plumage (which they hit at the end of summer), he is still hanging around with his "mom."

Do you have any pictures that show the side? Being able to see the pattern on the wing would help a lot. It does look like a female House Sparrow, but the head looks to be too round to be a House Sparrow, I'm leaning more towards a species of Finch.

I think it's a female house sparrow