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Italian Sparrow

Passer italiae

Description:

From far away, easily confused with House or Tree sparrows , two very common species all over the country. The male is mainly brown and grey above, and white-grey below, with chestnut crown, white cheeks and black eye-mask and black short bib. Female roughly looks like House sparrow's female.

Habitat:

Observed in and around small urban centers in NP Ecrins, French Alps, on altitudes ranging from 1100 to 1900m. All places I observed them this time are surrounded by alpine coniferous forests (predominantly European larch - Larix decidua), and represent the northern range boundary for this species.

Notes:

This was a surprising find and somewhat of a puzzle to come up with the ID. At first, I thought these were Tree sparrows, based on somewhat richer chestnut colours (in particular that rich chestnut colour of the crown) and more white than grey chest and belly. But few details were off, and very confusing: 1) the alpine environment, much higher than places where I would expect to see Tree sparrow; 2) I saw few females from far, looking quite like females of house sparrow - this would be inconsistent to Tree sparrow, where sexes are alike and 3) that black spot on cheeks (characteristic for Tree sparrow) was consistently missing from all birds I observed... After some digging around, I found out about the Italian sparrow, which is still rarely mentioned as species in its own right, but is merely regarded as subspecies of House sparrow or Spanish sparrow. Another theory mentions that the origin of the species was probably a hybridisation between these two species; but it is increasingly recognized as species now.

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Zlatan Celebic
Spotted by
Zlatan Celebic

Puy-Saint-Vincent, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

Spotted on Feb 24, 2022
Submitted on Feb 26, 2022

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