Species Guide: House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Family: Passeridae
The House Sparrow is one of the world’s most familiar birds. It is small, social, and closely associated with human settlements. Originally, it was native to parts of Europe, the Mediterranean, and much of Asia. It has been introduced (intentionally and accidentally) to the Americas, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere, and now occurs across much of the globe. Its long association with people, from farmsteads to megacities, means its fortunes often mirror changes in human land use and culture.
Appearance
Male
Adult males exhibit distinctive contrasting markings: a gray crown, chestnut nape and upper back, white cheeks, and a prominent black throat (“bib”) and upper breast. Their backs are streaked with brown and black, and they have a stout, conical bill adapted for seed-eating. The size and darkness of the black bib vary with age and dominance.
Female (and juveniles)
Females and young birds are plainer: warm brown and buff above with darker streaking, a paler underside, a buffy eyebrow (supercilium), and no black bib. Juveniles resemble adult females until they acquire adult plumage. Sexual dimorphism is clear in plumage but subtle in size.
Diet
House Sparrows are primarily granivorous, feeding on cultivated cereals, spilled grain, wild seeds, and food waste in towns. During breeding, they increase invertebrate intake for nestlings. They also exploit human food, nectar, and occasionally small fruits. This flexible diet aids their success among people.
Habitat
House Sparrows thrive in human-modified habitats: towns, villages, farms, markets, gardens, barns, and industrial areas. They nest in cavities, roof eaves, nest boxes, crevices, and dense vegetation near food. In their extended range, they also occupy open country where people store grain or keep livestock. Their distribution often reflects human settlements.
Introduced
Resident
Extinct
Behavior
Social behavior
Highly gregarious, House Sparrows often form flocks (loose “quarrels” when perched) and show a clear pecking order: males with larger black bibs tend to dominate. They forage on the ground in small groups, bathe in dust or water, and will mob predators or intruders at nest sites. They are bold and habituated to people, often feeding from hands or in busy marketplaces.
Vocalizations / call
Their “song” is simple: a series of sharp, nasal cheeps, chirrups, and churring notes rather than elaborate melodies. Males sing frequently while defending nests or advertising to females; calls are used in flock cohesion and alarm.
House Sparrow Call:
Ulf Elman, xeno-canto.org
Breeding and life cycle
Breeding: House Sparrows commonly raise multiple broods per year where food is plentiful. Nests are bulky and lined with grass, feathers, and debris; nest sites are flexible (roof cavities, nest boxes, building crevices, dense shrubs).
Eggs & incubation: Clutch size often ranges from 3–6 eggs; eggs are whitish with brownish spotting. Females do most incubation (≈10–14 days).
Nestling stage: Both parents commonly feed chicks; nestlings fledge in roughly 11–15 days, depending on food supply.
Biometrics2
| Length | 14-15 cm |
| Wing Length | 21-25 cm |
| Body Weight | 24-38 grams |
| Longevity | 3 Years |
Natural Predators
House Sparrows face predation from a variety of raptors (Cooper’s Hawks, Merlins, and other small hawks), owls, and ground/arboreal predators that take eggs or nestlings (cats, corvids, raccoons, snakes). Flocking behavior helps reduce individual predation risk through many eyes and group alarm. They are also hosts to many parasites and diseases, which can affect survival.
Relationship To Humans
The House Sparrow’s history is tightly-woven with human civilization: archaeological and genetic evidence links its commensal relationship with humans to the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. People have both celebrated and vilified sparrows: they appear in proverbs, poems, religious texts, and folk tales worldwide. From Aesop-style fables to the Japanese “Tongue-Cut Sparrow” fairy tale, their ubiquity made them symbols of common life, thrift, boldness, or smallness. In many regions, they have been valued for eating insect pests; in others (especially where introduced), they are treated as pests that compete with native birds and forage on crops. Their cultural prominence is large precisely because they live alongside us.
Conservation Status
Globally, the House Sparrow is assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its extremely large range and global population. However, local and regional trends vary: in many parts of Europe (notably the UK and parts of western Europe), House Sparrow numbers have fallen substantially over recent decades, declines attributed to loss of nesting sites, reduced insect food (for nestlings) from intensive agriculture, modern building designs, urban changes, and possibly pollutants or disease. In contrast, populations in some regions (including many urban areas and parts of North America after introduction) remain common or locally abundant. Thus, global status masks worrying local declines that have prompted targeted conservation work (nest boxes, habitat-friendly gardening, and research into causes).
U.K.
Conservation Status
Global
Conservation Status
Ad Space
CITATIONS
- By IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, species assessors and the authors of the spatial data., CC BY-SA 3.0, [Accessed 11/10/2025] ↩︎
- By RSPB [Accessed 11/10/2025] ↩︎
References
- Golley, M. (2016) Field guide to the birds of Britain and Ireland. London, England: Bloomsbury. [Accessed 11/10/2025]
- Lovette, I. et al. (2016) The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, handbook of bird biology. Third edition. Chichester: Wiley. [Accessed 11/10/2025]
