House sparrow
Ricardo De la Torre
Room106
House Sparrows have lived around humans for
centuries. Look for them on city streets, taking handouts in
parks and zoos, or cheeping from a perch on your roof or
trees in your yard. House Sparrows are absent from
undisturbed forests and grasslands, but they’re common in
countryside around farmsteads.
House Sparrows are noisy sparrows that flutter down
from eaves and fencerows to hop and peck at crumbs or
birdseed. They are flying in and out of nest holes hidden
behind shop signs or in traffic lights, or hanging around
parking lots waiting for crumbs and picking insects off car
grills.
House sparrow pictures
Nesting
 House sparrows are usually with their eggs most
of the time until they hatch.
 The house sparrow is an easy animal to find in
parks trees and in building signs
 If you see a house sparrow in its nest then it is
taking care of its eggs
 So leave it alone because if it is scared off it will
never come back and the birds in the eggs will
die
History
 Initially, eight pairs were released in Brooklyn, NY in either 1850 or 1851 by
a single person/group of New Yorkers. Apparently they died before they
could breed.
 In 1854 and 1858, the bird was introduced to Portland Maine
 In 1856 or 1857, Charles and Rupert Eaton imported a number of English
Sparrows from New York or Massachusetts (not sure which) and set them
free in Lower Canard, Nova Scotia. (Piers) They first appeared on Cape
Breton island in 1889, and rapidly spread over Nova Scotia.
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In 1889, in "The English Sparrow in North America Especially Its Relations
to Agriculture," Walter B. Barrows recommended the formation of "Sparrow
Clubs" with the objective of destroying HOSP via concerted action, offering
prizes, etc.
 In 1917, Birds of America noted "The filthy habits of these birds are most
annoying. They gather in immense flocks to roost..." and defile houses and
cisterns with excrement and nesting materials. "As a flock of fifty Sparrows
requires daily the equivalent of a quart of wheat, the annual loss caused by
these birds throughout the country is very great.
 There was a trap to catch a house sparrow
male house sparrow Description
• The House Sparrow is a small bird measuring 6 to 6 ½ inches in
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length
brown, gray, black, and white
The back of its head is a chestnut brown and extends all the way
to its eyes
has a gray cap and broad white bars on its upper wings
Its chest and belly are grayish-white
In winter the black bib around its throat is hidden under the pale
breast feathers
Female House Sparrow description
 The female's plumage is light in color and streaked
with brown
 The black bib is nonexistent and the grey crown is
missing
 juveniles are a deeper brown and the white is
replaced by a buff color
 The female and juvenile's beaks are yellow while the
male's is black in the summer and yellow in the winter
Behavior
 A house sparrow is a very aggressive bird
 House Sparrows will kill an adult bluebird, smash
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its eggs, and take over the nesting site
They take over abandoned cliff swallow nest.
The house sparrow is the enemy of the house
mountain birds and blue birds
It also take the nest of native species
The house sparrow that is not protected by law
hunting.