Rufous Sparrow
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| Rufous Sparrow | ||||||||||||||
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| Passer motitensis Smith, 1836 |
The Rufous Sparrow, Southern Rufous Sparrow or in South Africa the Great Sparrow, Passer motitensis, is found in Africa in dry, wooded savannah and towns.
This is a 15-16 cm long sparrow superficially like a large House Sparrow. It has a grey crown and rear neck and rufous upperparts.
The taxonomy of this species is confused. The forms insularis and rufocinctus are often split as the Socotra Sparrow and Kenya Rufous Sparrow respectively, but are also lumped into P. motitensis following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Some authorities also split the East Africa form shelleyi as Shelley's Rufous Sparrow and Sudanese cordofanicus as Kordofan Rufous Sparrow.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Passer motitensis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 09 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton, SASOL Birds of Southern Africa (Struik 2002) ISBN 1-86872-721-1
- Clement, Harris and Davis, Finches and Sparrows ISBN 0-7136-8017-2
