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Italian Sparrow

Passer italiae

Photo by LauraMaria
Published on Project Noah
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45.4637, 9.18817

Field Notes

Description:

Small bird with very distinctively "sparrow looking" markings. It's sexually dimorphic, with the males (pictured 1 and 2) possessing a chestnut brown cap and nape of the neck, a black eye mask and white cheeks and the female (picture 3) much more bland looking. Very common birds in Italy. Look something like a cross between a tree sparrow and a house sparrow.

Notes:

Spotted pretty much everywhere in Italy, but the birds in these photos were found in Milan's Parco Sempione and Giardini Pubblici. I had always thought they were some Italian sub-species of tree sparrow, but it turns out they are their own species entirely.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (12)
The MnMs
Nice spotting, Laura. Sparrows are so often overlooked here in Europe. However they are pretty, resilient little birds, very smart and with lots of stories to tell about them :-)
LauraMaria
Thanks Ashish (belatedly!) and 8BitFinch. Yeah, I loved how rich the colours were on these sparrows, so gorgeous! I know, it was so confusing because they had the brown cap like tree sparrows, but no black cheek blob like house sparrows. Was kind of excited to see it was its own species!
Ashish
Last picture...is lovely... Nice capture...
DanielePralong
Thanks for the precisions Laura Maria. A special little guy!
LauraMaria
Daniele, I was indeed able to get a hold of the paper and had a quick read through! It's an interesting article, they think that the divergence happened pretty recently, probably in the last 10,000 years. And Emma, I know I've learned so much from Project Noah! I'm glad to hear others have too :D
HemaShah
interesting!We have the Savannah sparrow and the black chinned sparrow and so on and so forth. Discovered all this only after joining Project Noah!
DanielePralong
Well how timely that you spotted this bird Laura Maria! Have you seen the original paper? Any idea how recently the separation took place?
LauraMaria
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14947902 Check this out, genetic analysis confirms that this little guy and his other Italian comrades are definitely a distinct species of sparrow!
Wild Things
Looks like a cousin of the house sparrow.
LucBertrand
The sparrow from Italy are super nice. What a lovely pair of lovers on your picture 4 hihihi :))
LauraMaria
Thanks Daniele! Yes, the sparrows had such a lovely colour, I think the sun brought out so much depth in the colour! Getting all the rest of my spottings ready to upload :D
DanielePralong
Beautiful rich chestnut colours on the male Laura Maria. Who said sparrows were boring! Looking forward to more of your Italian spottings.

Spotted for Missions

Mission
WILD Cities: Urban Biodiversity
Mission
Birds of the World

Tags

Photographed
PublishedAugust 4, 2011

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