Female House Sparrow

Here's a female House Sparrow. Yesterday's male House Sparrows have more of contrast of colors; like with many passerines and ducks, the females have more subdued coloring (a form of sexual dimorphism). In many cases the best way for me to figure out what female bird is out there is to see what species the males that are with them. This strategy isn't perfect:

  1. Sometimes there are "strays" that have none of their own species around, so they'll try and hang out with whoever has similar feeding habits.
  2. More rarely you'll correctly identify a pair of birds who end up breeding together ... but they're not the same species. (Mallards and American Black Ducks are just one example.)
  3. And of course sometimes you'll see no males around at all.
  4. Still, the old saying that "birds of a feather flock together" really does work most of the time.

March 2021 at Finderne


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