House Sparrow

Passer domesticus
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Common resident around artificial structures throughout campus. This species nests in artificial crevices and cavities in buildings and other structures, and occasionally in bluebird nest boxes. Although it often forages on seeds in weedy and brushy habitats, the House Sparrow most frequently feeds on human leftovers.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
BUILDING
F
 I: 10-13 DAYS
 ALTRICIAL
TREE
 To 40 feet
SPHERICAL
 MF
4-6
 (3-7)
 ?
F: 14-17 DAYS
 MF
INSECTS
 FRUIT
FOLIAGE GLEAN
BREEDING: Cultivated lands, woodland and edge, around human habitation. 2, often 3 broods.
DISPLAYS: Courting male hops around female, back flattened, head up, tail down, wings extended, and tips of primaries nearly touching the ground.
NEST: In artificial or natural cavity; also rarely ball-shaped with entrance on side, placed in fork or tree branch; of grass, forbs, lined with feathers, hair. Male or female may select site.
EGGS: White, greenish, or bluish, marked with gray or brown. 0.9" (23 mm).
DIET: Includes spiders; grass and forb seeds, blossoms. Young fed mostly insects.
CONSERVATION: Winter resident. Introduced and established between 1850 and 1867. Aggressively appropriates nests, esp of bluebirds and swallows, often destroying eggs and nestlings.
NOTES: Most abundant species in U.S. in early 1900s except in densely forested, alpine and desert regions. Decreased with advent of automobile and decline of horse, esp in e urban areas; presumably because of disappearance of grain fed to horses and spread in their manure. Still abundant in agricultural areas. Competition for nest sites begins in autumn for the following spring. Mostly female broods young. Large winter roosts in or near human dwellings or in dense evergreen trees. Has differentiated geographically since introduction to N.A.; races now vary in color and body size in different parts of N.A. range.
ESSAYS: Avian Invaders; Natural Selection; Wing Shapes and Flight; Bathing and Dusting; Species and Speciation; Communal Roosting.
REFERENCES: Hegner and Wingfield, 1986, 1987; Johnston and Selander, 1964; Murphy, 1978; Robbins, 1973.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).