I was surprised too. I've only twice heard people calling them by other names,
both by people over 70. "Spidgie" and "squidgie" were the names used, and
neither mentioned whether they meant Tree or House Sparrows, and it's possible
they didn't know there was more than one kind.
Peter Shute
wrote on Thursday, 20 November 2008 5:29 PM:
> 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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