Sparrow | Facts & Information

Features: small body and pleasant chirping, are noisy in flocks

We can meet them absolutely everywhere people live: from coal mines to the terraces on the last floors of skyscrapers.

They are highly adaptable, not afraid of people, and even prefer to stay close to them, without venturing far from buildings. Therefore, the common species is called the house sparrow, the scientific name being passer domesticus.

They do not have an unusual plumage, nor are they – like other remarkable birds – flying, sparrows spending a lot of time on the ground, on branches, on roofs or even on our window sills…

They live in groups and are loud, but who's to say they don't like the optimistic chirping of sparrows ?

Once Upon a time, the Sparrow lived only in southern Europe, Northern Africa and some Asian areas of the Middle East. But because living around people is extremely favorable to him, he has managed to spread to almost all inhabited areas of the planet.

It bred fairly quickly in North America after arriving there in 1852, but did almost as well in Australia, the continent on which it was introduced in 1862.

We meet her almost everywhere she makes her presence felt: on the streets of localities, in gardens, in parks, and even in industrial areas.

The Sparrow makes its nest both in trees and bushes, but especially in the gaps or cracks in the walls of buildings or industrial buildings. The basic condition in choosing the place: not to be accessible to its natural enemies.

I mean, especially for cats! In winter, sparrows do not migrate, but gather in more numerous flocks and prefer to stay longer in the trees.

Feeding Sparrow

The house sparrow feeds on seeds of all kinds, small insects, crumbs and other food debris.

In areas with important climatic differences, sparrows find it harder to eat in winter, but in the end they manage: they mix among the poultry (when they receive grain) or come to the windows of people who put crumbs there.

Features Sparrow

When we talk about Passer Domesticus (or even fringilla domestica according to other authors), we are actually talking about that small bird, easily recognizable due to its brown-gray plumage, has a short tail and feathers infoyed in winter.

There are several species of sparrows in the family Passeridae, some that feed exclusively on seeds in the field, others anthropophilic (as is the sparrow that we know and that we see on every street corner) and the differences between species are often too small to be discerned by an unknown.

It is an expansionist, naughty, aggressive, but still cute. It is not a rare bird but so adaptable that it managed to populate, in just a few years, the very remote settlements of Siberia. It nests in trees or hollows.

It multiplies quickly, the female laying eggs 3 times a year (hatched by both parents), each time bringing into the world 4-5 chicks. Where agriculture is practiced, the Sparrow also appears. Its presence has been noted even beyond the Arctic Circle.

In size, the Sparrow is a maximum of 15 centimeters long, and the wingspan can reach 22 – 25 centimeters.

The weight of a mature specimen varies between 24 and 38 grams, depending on the age, the area in which it lives and the season. The sparrow can live a maximum of 12 years, but enough of these little flying ones end up, much earlier, under the wheels of cars or in the claws of cats…

Sparrow Breeding

A Sparrow lays in its nest (made of dry grass) between 3 and 6 eggs, which it hatches for about two weeks. Annually, a family of sparrows can raise even three generations of Cubs.

In fact, the little chirps develop at a fairly accelerated pace, after less than three weeks already having their plumage and skills formed for flight!

Unfortunately, the first attempts – unsuccessful-endanger the life of the chicks, which arrive too quickly on the ground and can not immediately resume their flight, to the satisfaction of hungry carnivores.