Dear Bill and Philip,
Many thanks for your replies to my question about sparrows,
it certainly helps clarify and simplify the situation. However, I
have had no responses with respect to local or alternative names for
sparrows which although disappointing is not surprising I suppose in
the sense that most people I ask have no awareness that sparrows are
called anything else. I will keep searching. Thanks again.
Yours sincerely
Nick Uren
On 14/11/2008, at 12:01 AM, Bill Jolly wrote:
Odd that my posting below, to which Philip refers, hasn't turned up
in my birding-aus inbox, although Philip's response to my posting
has! I can't work that out!
Anyway, Philip asked me to clarify what I meant by ".......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."
What I meant, but didn't make clear, was that the Chinese Tree
Sparrows were likely of the race obscuratus, which I believe has
long been subsumed into the general mix of races that now makes up
Passer montanus in Australia.
I'm pretty sure there was a paper in Emu some years back that
suggested that Aussie Tree Sparrows were an amalgum of at least
three races, presumably implying that a new trinomial was in order?
I expect this is well-documented somewhere, but I'm not well up on
taxonomy at that level.
Bill Jolly
From:
To: ; ; birding-
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Sparrows
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:51:01 +1100
Very good answer from Bill. I would add that there are of course
many species of the genus Passer (which are the sparrows, the
nominate genus of the order, from which the word passerine is
derived) and only two of those were introduced to Australia.
America also has another different family of birds, many or maybe
all of which are called sparrows but these are not the same genus.
The differences between the House Sparrow & Tree Sparrows are far
greater than just "physical differences between them mostly about
the head". They are very different in the extent of sexual
dimorphism and as a corollary or consequence in their social
behaviour. (This was the subject of a thesis I did a long time
ago.) The Tree Sparrows being very unusual among a group in which
most species are sexual dimorphic, in that the female plumage is
like the typical for the males of the genus.
I would also add that the native finch the Diamond Firetail is also
unhelpfully called Diamond Sparrow sometimes.
Philip
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