Urban Birding Adventure: St. Louis Tree Sparrows!

[finchwench]

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with relatives in Saint Louis, Missouri. We went to the local zoopark, and I enjoyed the opportunity for some backyard and urban bird-watching. As nice as it was to see the Cardinals of Saint Louis (of course, I mean the birds not the baseball team), the ornithological highlight of the trip had to be the sighting

Comments

[ericrovve]

Great - they are even getting rare over here in Europe!

[finchwench]

Are they really becoming rare? I know that there has been a decline even in House Sparrows, in Asia too. Is the Tree Sparrow decline proportionate?

[ericrovve]

I don't have the figures, but they have quite disappeared from some areas. What I get here are house/Italian sparrows hybrids, although they look to me more like tree-sparrows without the spot.