Talk:Old World sparrow

Latest comment: 4 years ago by Chris Fletcher in topic Feral

"Lists of Miscellaneous Information Should Be Avoided" edit

I came to this page hoping to find out more about the cultural associations of sparrows and was happy to find the section on literary references. Please don't get rid of this section just because of a blanket dislike of lists. —KillerDeathRobot (talk) 06:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

White-crown edit

[1] This article may be useful in future just to back up someones edit to the mail article. I hestate to put it in the main article as i am not sure of this statement. "Professor Gary Rose, of the University of Utah, US, found that white crown sparrows learned a complete song, in the correct order, despite only ever hearing overlapping segments of it." Remind me of another story about a dog that turned out to be very problematic

That article is about a New World sparrow. This article is about Old World sparrows. --Evice 23:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Literature edit

Moved the Sparrows in Literature section back here from House Sparrow, since it concerns sparrows generically, and this is where you would naturally think to find it. Oliverkroll 21:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Lifespan? edit

What is the average lifespan of a Sparrow?

Online art store link edit

The link that has been repeatedly added to this article, while possibly well intentioned, is link spam. It should not be included under WP:EL. If you think I am wrong, please make your case here. Be prepared to state what the link adds to the article that would not be redundant if Sparrow were brought up to featured article standards. --Selket Talk 08:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

The link has only been added twice, as far as I can see, and only to this article. If it becomes persistent, then I think the assumption of good faith looks a little shaky, and I'll take steps to prevent it. jimfbleak 08:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply


Sparrows as food edit

I'm not sure which species it is that is consumed, but I'm assuming it's House Sparrow since they are fairly commonplace. This occurs in China and Japan, but I don't want to put anything in the articles without knowing for sure which species it is. Robin Chen 04:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Most common? edit

Article should answer the question: Is this the most common bird worldwide? Tempshill 17:06, 12 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

The most common wild bird is Red-billed Quelea, most common including non-wild is chicken, 05:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
That depends upon the definition of "most common". I wouldn't treat a bird that is common to only one part of one continent as the "most common" in the world. I would consider "most common" to be a function of both range and population -- something like "most commonly seen in most parts of the world" The Red-billed Quelea may be the most abundant bird species, but is it actually more abundant than the total population of all the species of Old World sparrow? Dfoxvog (talk) 14:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Chirping Sparrow? edit

Does anyone know the Latin name for the Chirping Sparrow? (80.216.88.241 (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC))Reply

I think you mean Chipping Sparrow Spizella passerina, an American sparrow jimfbleak (talk) 05:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Source for putting Plocepasser and others in Passeridae edit

I'd like to update the sparrow article properly, so I'd like to know your source for putting Plocepasser in Passeridae. The one you gave in a hidden note is about the lice of Malagasy warblers, and does not discuss sparrows or weavers. —innotata 14:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

The following place the genera in question in the Passeridae: IOC, IUCN, Zoonomen, and ITIS. I see Clements has it in Ploceidae. I went with consensus, since we don't have a single standard.....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
The ITIS is using a rather old taxonomy (it isn't updated much, and I remember being strange in some areas), and I think the IUCN is the same; Zoonomen just displays the taxonomies of the "Peters Checklist, H&M 3rd ed., and CBBM" and the IOC is very fast to adopt proposed changes. The HBW (2009) places the genera in Ploceidae, and discusses the taxonomic issues. That doesn't make a "consensus" of sources, I think, so I'm not sure we should adopt this in taxoboxes. At any rate the article should discuss the genera in question in general, which is what I'll add if it's not clearer. —innotata 20:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Parent Species edit

"According to Luis Allende and colleagues, sparrows seem to have a parental species (Petronia petronia). They are not closely related to American sparrows or finches.[10][11]" Doesn't that make the whole family polyphyletic to a single species? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.140.89.178 (talk) 04:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Feral edit

Probably need some content mentioning their "feral" status is some locations.

Chris Fletcher (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2019 (UTC)Reply