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Sind
Sparrow |
Passer
pyrrhonotus |
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Full
Species (monotypic); i.e. no subspecies/races
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As
to habits: - I have never as yet met them at any distance from water;
they keep generally in small flocks of five or six; once only have
I come on a flock of 15 or 20. Their food apparently (from dissection)
consists of seeds and insects. There is a small dense creeper which
covers the tamarisk bushes growing in the water, and which has its
seeds contained in a long thin pod similar to a French bean only thinner;
when unripe it is of a reddish purple colour. These seeds seem to
be just now (December) the principal food of this Sparrow ; when not
feeding on this they are picking up food of some kind along the edge
of the water, or searching for insects among the dried branches of
withered old babool trees in the water. For a long time I could not
hear them utter any note, though my boatman could and got me numerous
shots by listening for this chirrup. At last I heard it; it is very
similar to that of the common Sparrow, but very faint. The nests I
found, three in number, were exactly similar to those of P. domestics
but smaller, and were situated in the tops of “acacia”
trees growing in the water. Two nests were in one tree, and the third
in a tree close by it. At night in the cold weather they roost in
some small dries acacia or tamarisk bush standing in the water, and
which is covered with a dense mass of dried stems of creepers thickly
interlaced together.
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