SUZUME
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Passer montanus
The tree sparrow is indigenous to most of Europe and Asia. It was introduced to Australia, and to North America around 1870, though it is totally unrelated to the native American tree sparrow. This bird lives everywhere in Japan except the Bonin Islands, and was once the national bird of the Philippines, where it was called the maya.
In the summer the tree sparrow's beak is a grey-blue, but it turns almost black in the winter. Unlike many birds, the coloring and markings of the male and female of the species are almost alike. It makes a short shrill chirp, though these sounds together produce a quite musical song.
Tree sparrows are less aggressive and contentious than their relatives the house sparrows, and more social, as they often congregate in large flocks. They prefer rural areas in most of the world, but in Japan they also frequent towns. They eat mostly grains and seeds, though they sometimes supplement their diet with insects.
They tend to nest in groups, favoring old trees which have lots of hollows in them, though they also build their nests among thick roots, or in cliffsides or abandoned quarries, or even in the old thatch of a barn or cottage. All these sites are chosen for the holes which the birds line with messily intertwined constructions of grass, hay, straw and roots. These are lined with softer findings such as feathers, fur, flowers, leaves, and human leavings such as string, cloth and paper. The female lays four to six small brown to grey eggs, usually with markings on only one end. In most nests, there will be one egg which is lighter and differently marked than the rest.
Read a Japanese folktale ~ The Tongue-Cut Sparrow
Take home a Eurasian Tree Sparrow!
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sources:
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds. Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
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