Passer domesticus
Order Passeriformes
Family Passeridae
Other names: English Sparrow
♂ Adult male.— Top of head grayish; a patch of chestnut on each side of the head; back brown, streaked with black; wing-bars white; a stripe of chestnut on each wing; throat and upper breast black; rest of under parts grayish-white.
♀ Adult female.— Head grayish-brown; back streaked with black and buff; under parts whitish; breast washed with grayish-brown.
Nest, either in trees, or in a hole or corner.
Eggs, generally white, sometimes brownish, finely speckled with brown or gray.
The English Sparrow is now a permanent resident of nearly every city, town, and village in New York and New England. Only the wilder or more hilly portions of northern New England are still free from its presence. In many suburbs it occupies the boxes and holes which otherwise Bluebirds, Wrens, and White-bellied Swallows [Tree Swallow] would use. It also annoys Robins by following the parents when they are collecting food for their young and stealing it from out of their bills. At night Sparrows roost in thick trees or vines, and in large cities collect in astonishing numbers in small parks. In the country small flocks often collect in brush-heaps.
The Sparrow’s voice is harsh, and too suggestive of the city to please most ears. Its ordinary note is the well-known chirp, but it has an astonishingly large number of modifications of this note. In spring, or on warm days in winter, the male utters a cry, like the syllables fée-leep, with a persistence worthy of a better cause. The chunkiness of the Sparrow, the unstreaked dingy-white breast of the female, and the black throat of the male, will serve to identify it to any one who is so fortunate as to be unacquainted with it.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)