birding-aus

Sparrows

To: <>, birding-aus <>
Subject: Sparrows
From: Bill Jolly <>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:43:58 +1000
Hi Nick

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is the bird that most people are familiar 
with in our urban environments. When an Australian says 'sparrow' without 
qualification, this will be the bird he means. The Acclimatisation Societies 
brought them in numbers in the latter half of the 19th century. This is the 
common sparrow over most of eastern Australia.

Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) is another Eurasian import, but is much less 
common in Australia being restricted mostly to Melbourne and some other 
locations in Victoria and southern NSW. Its natural distribution is across 
Europe and Asia, including China (where the House Sparrow does not occur).

Java Sparrow (Lonchura oryzivora) is a colourful heavy-billed finch, quite 
unlike the sparrows referred to above. Its original home was in eastern 
Indonesia, but it has long been popular with aviculturalists and has escaped or 
been released into many parts of Asia as well as Hawaii and Florida. I'm not 
aware of any populations of Java Sparrow in mainland Australia.

Hedge Sparrow (Prunella modularis) refers to a European bird also know as Hedge 
Accentor or Dunnock. It isn't a sparrow, or a finch, though it could be said to 
superficially resemble House or Tree Sparrows. I don't believe it has ever been 
present in Australia, but it has been succesfully introduced to New Zealand.

English Sparrow is a widely used name for the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) 
above.

Chinese Sparrow most likely refers to Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus) of 
Chinese origin, which were introduced to Melbourne and Tasmania in small 
numbers in the 19th century, but have long since disappeared.

House and Tree Sparrows are accordingly the only sparrows which are to be found 
on the Australian mainland. The physical differences between them are mostly 
about the head, and there are a number of field guides to Australian birds that 
set out those differences clearly, with accompanying illustrations.

I hope that is useful. Please don't hesitate to let me know if I can assist 
further.

All the best

Bill Jolly
> To: > From: > Date: Thu, 13 Nov 
> 2008 10:53:28 +1100> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Sparrows> > Dear Sir/Madam,> I 
> have been trying to do some research on the origins of sparrows > in 
> Australia and their other names such as "spoggies" "sproggies" > "spridge" 
> and so on. I have been making some progress through annual > reports from the 
> 1860s of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria. > However, I am having 
> difficulty distinguishing between the different > sparrows that have been 
> mentioned. So far I have come across six: > House, Hedge, Tree, Java, Chinese 
> and English. I'd like to get some > expert advice on the distinctions between 
> them, if indeed there are > differences and to what extent they are related. 
> Also if anyone has > any ideas about the origins of alternative names for 
> sparrows then > I'd be gratefull to hear them.> > Yours sincerely> > Nick 
> Uren> > ===============================> www.birding-aus.org> 
> birding-aus.blogspot.com> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, > send the 
> message:> unsubscribe > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)> 
> to: > ===============================
_________________________________________________________________
It's simple! Sell your car for just $40 at CarPoint.com.au
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fsecure%2Dau%2Eimrworldwide%2Ecom%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Fa%2Fci%5F450304%2Fet%5F2%2Fcg%5F801459%2Fpi%5F1004813%2Fai%5F859641&_t=762955845&_r=tig_OCT07&_m=EXT==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
=============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU