Passer domesticus, (Linnaeus 1758)

[Inghese]

Passer domesticus, (Linnaeus 1758) It is the most numerous bird in Italy, sedentary, blood and partially migratory. Subdivided, how
we have had occasion to notice, in various subspecies of which three in particular are of interest
Italy and which differ from each other, degrading from north to south, for a variation of
cline-following staining.
The typical species, P. d. domesticus, with an ashy gray vertex, is present in some areas of Italy
of the north, in particular in the Alpine arc, in Valle d'Aosta, in western Piedmont, in the
Eastern Veneto and Istria. Accidental and partially haematic in the Po Valley and in Liguria
during the winter, and probably also in step. Very rare elsewhere. The Sparrow of Italy, P. d.
italiae, differs in the brown vertex (but with feathers margined with gray in winter) and for
the underparts whiter. Present and stationary throughout the peninsula from the Alps to Calabria,
and in Corsica. The Sardinian Sparrow, P. d. bis paniolensis, has the back more streaked with blackish, black
of the throat more extensive on the chest and the flanks spotted and streaked with black. Present in Sardinia, in
Sicily, in Calabria, in Puglia, in Basilicata, in Campania and in general in the southern parts of the
peninsula. The characteristics highlighted concern males. The females look remarkably similar
among them (at least for me it is almost impossible to distinguish the female of the P. d.
domesticus from that of P. d. italiae) with the exception of that of the P. d. hispaniolensis which has
slightly paler cheeks and darker rump. The juveniles are nearly identical, except
that in the subspecies P. d. hispaniolensis where they have (lighter cheeks and darker rump) the same characteristics as the females. However, it is my duty to acknowledge that the subspecific phenotypic differences, where they exist, are distinguishable, except in some cases, only through a direct comparison, given also the enormous variety of types that the species offers us. In the areas of contact between the subspecies for
crossbreeding gives rise to local breeds or populations with intermediate characteristics (brutius in
Calabria, Malta and Sicily) more or less accentuated which, in my opinion, make it really difficult
the attribution of this or that subject to that specific subspecies. It is also interesting, within the subspecies, to examine in detail the heterogeneity of the phenotype (see in this regard the study by Bertani, 1944, indicative even if incomplete) which varies following a directive
north south according to Bergmann's rule. Frequent then, especially in P. d. italiae, the forms of
albinism (partial and total, but partial is more common), isabellism and melanism (and then
even stranger things, such as a female captured white and became isabella after moulting,
see Abba 1970), for which I refer to the Authors cited in the bibliography, noting in addition
a strain of Isabella sparrows in Palermo (fide d'Amico), a silver male owned by Mr.
Foglia di Genova presented two years ago in various ornithological exhibitions, a white male with
some cinnamon streaks of my property, unfortunately dead and not preserved due to bad conditions
of the rectrices, and a female with symmetrical white marking on the remiges, also of
my property and the latter still in perfect health, of which I reproduce the photograph. Interesting
in this regard the studies of Taibel (1935 and 1938) especially for what refers to Isabellism
which, incidentally, seems to me to be a phenomenon that mainly interests females, while albinism and melanism seem to predominantly affect males. It is also known (Orlando, 1935) a hybrid between P. d. hispaniolensis and Tree Sparrow (P. montanus) caught
near Palermo in June 1928 and which Orlando describes as similar to the morning sparrow
but of larger dimensions and in which «... the black of the upper chest is particularly evident
on the left side..." Despite Gray's (1957) reports in her Birds Hibrids that the says hybridize (in the wild or in captivity? but all in all it's the same) with the greenfinch, the chaffinch and the domestic canary; despite the Menassè («Encyclopedic treatise on canariculture» of 1974)
who defines its hybridization with the canary "... not very difficult but of little interest";
despite the Codazzi ("Treatise on hybridology" of 1957, but already a previous edition dated to 1952) who among the most common hybrids with the canary mentions the hybridization «Canario-Passera», I have absolutely no news of hybrids of Sparrow except within the genus. In any case, for an examination of the too hasty statements of certain table hybridizers (and I exclude Gray because she only published a list of reported hybrids and certainly not a critical list) I refer to the notes on the subject by Maranini (1977). It nests throughout Italy and on the islands from the end of April to the end of August but sometimes also in September and October, with a number of broods varying from one to three, exceptionally four, depending on age and food conditions. The subspecies domesticus and italiae are more related to man and his environment; the ihispaniolensis also (Toschi, 1969) «.., in the semi-deserted and wild countryside, bushes, thickets and scrub».
He builds in the cavities of the walls, in the gutters, in the crevices of the rocks, in the holes of the
trees; in the boxes for artificial nests placed by private ornithophiles and by the League for protection
of birds, an open nest; on tree branches or outside (it is truly a typical
ploceid, see Fossati 1936) a globular, voluminous nest, with an opening on one side, with
the most varied materials. It often occupies the nests of house martins, Delichon urbica (Linnaeus 1758), and of
other birds, with whom he engages in violent battles that do not always end for him with
positive results (see Bacchi della Lega, as well as a note on «Avicula» of 1897 which
he writes how in Rome a group of swallows walled up a sparrow that had it alive in a nest
usurped to try to settle there). Mating takes place several times after a nuptial parade (Rosa, 1974) based on the ostentation of the spot on the chest that can recall (at least to me it always reminded
to mind), that of the cut throat, Amadina left (Gmelin 1789) and of other astrildids, perhaps
phylogenetically closer than is usually admitted.
The deposition is 3-6 eggs (exceptionally even 7) for each brood and the female
it provides for the incubation for about thirteen days, in some cases helped by the male. The feeding, essentially granivorous in winter, becomes during the reproductive period almost totally insectivorous (or at least predominantly, see Sciacchitano,
1924). Moltoni (1943) calculates, and in my opinion, according to the data supplied by him, with an excessively prudent approximation by default, the consumption day of a pair of P. d. italiae engaged for fourteen hours a day in the feeding a litter of four young. In some cases Sparrows have been observed during the period of the rearing of the offspring even feed on lizards (Moltoni, 1954), for which it is legitimate to believe that in this phase even small ones are included in the diet smaller vertebrates.
The chicks, nourished by both parents, leave the nest around the fifteenth day from hatch and shortly thereafter are self-sufficient.
Cases of interspecific care have been found (Skutch, 1961) in which females of house sparrow they collaborated in the nutrition of juveniles of other species. Captive breeding it does not present great difficulties in external aviaries, in spite of Taibel's affirmations
(1935 ) and the inexplicably negative results achieved at that time at the experimental station of Rovigo aviculture.
The Passeri isabella of Palermo, bred in captivity according to what Giovanni d'Amico tells me, they would be clear proof of this. Caged, for
the more difficult, the reproduction took place several times (Socci, 1976) and in this moment as I write these notes, in my internal aviary where I host Eurasian birds (about 80 individuals) a Sparrow has laid in a nest box, and broods regularly but I don't know with what future results given the relative crowding of the environment, five eggs of which the candling four proved to be fertilized.
One last note: the Sparrow domestic in Italy it is parasitized by the Cuckoo (Moltoni, 1951) as he had already pointed out
Arrigoni degli Oddi (1929) and before him Bettoni in his «Natural history of birds that nest in Lombardy» of 1865, while the same parasitization has not been found in France, Belgium and Switzerland by Geroudet in his study on the subject from 1950 («Who are the guests of the Cuckoo?» in Nos Oiseaux ).