Africa Wild

The Cape sparrow or mossie (Passer melanurus) is a medium-sized bird at 14–16 centimetres (5.5–6.3 in),
The Cape sparrow is brightly coloured and distinctive.




The breeding male has a mostly black head, but with a broad white mark on each side, curling from behind the eye to the throat.
On the throat a narrow black band connects the black bib of the breast to black of the head.
The underparts are greyish, darker on the flanks.
The back of the male's neck is dark grey, and its back and shoulders are bright chestnut.
The male has a white and a black wing bar below its shoulders, and flight feathers and tail streaked grey and black.


The female is plumaged like the male, but is duller and has a grey head with a different pattern from the male, though it bears a hint of the pale head markings of the male.
The juvenile is like the female, but young males have black markings on the head from an early age.





Please post your pictures of your male / female / and juvenile Cape Sparrow.

Please post your in-flights also. Should you not have any – grab your camera, there’s a sparrow on your doorstep.

Kgalagadi, Twee Rivieren


Female: Head and breast dark grey with paler semicircles from behind eyes to throat; wingbar dull white.


Male: Head and breast black with broad semicircles of white from behind eyes to sides of throat, not quite meeting in centre; mantle greyish; back, rump and upperwing coverts bright rufous; conspicuous white wingbar; rest of underparts white. Bill black in breeding season, horn in non-breeding season.

At first glance they are not colourful birds.
I have done a test run and made them black and white,
then added a bit of chestnut,
and then the balance of the pink on the body.
It is amazing just how colourful they are.

I will post the pics a little later (systems no go at the moment )

Amoli wrote:

At first glance they are not colourful birds.
I have done a test run and made them black and white,
then added a bit of chestnut,
and then the balance of the pink on the body.
It is amazing just how colourful they are.

I will post the pics a little later (systems no go at the moment )

Thanks Nan - here they are :

Just black and white the female looks very uninteresting..





We then add a bit of chestnut... ahh, starting to look better




Let's take away the chestnut - and see how much pink she actually has..





Okey, let's put all her colours on - beautiful. It is only once you 'un-colour' a birdie, do you realise the beautiful colours.

male 1.3.2011

female with an hairdo 14.9.2009

Kliekrankie

female building 29.9.2009

female 26.1.2012

Dinner with a friend :

Some more on the colours (Description) of the Cape Sparrow..

From the front the Male is nothing spectacular - black and white - white and black...





but from the side and the back, the are sooooo beautiful.



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In the beginning of my picture days, I always wondered what kind of birds were these ones that was such a dark orange in flight.
I got to find out - it was the female Cape Sparrow.

The Cape sparrow is social, lives in flocks, and usually breeds in colonies.
Away from humans it is nomadic, and forms flocks of up to 200 birds.
In cultivated and built up areas, smaller flocks form where food is provided for livestock or birds. In such places, it associates with other seed-eating birds, such as the house sparrow, the cape weaver, and Euplectes weavers.

Okie has set the table here : how many pics do we have of the sparrow sharing food with other birds.

okie wrote:Dinner with a friend :

Birds from urban areas form flocks seasonally and fly out to nearby countryside to feed on ripening grain, returning at night to roost.
Cape sparrows prefer to roost in nests, and while wandering when not breeding, birds in uncultivated areas roost in old nests or dense bushes.
In farmland and towns, birds build special nests for roosting, lined more poorly than breeding nests, but made of more insulating material.

An unusual social behaviour has been described from Cape sparrows in Johannesburg. Groups of 20–30 birds separate from larger flocks and stand close together on the ground with tails on the ground and heads held high. These groups sometimes move in an unconcerted fashion by hopping slowly. Often birds will fly up and hover 30–60 centimetres (12–24 in) above the ground. During these gatherings birds are silent and are never antagonistic. This behaviour's significance is unknown, and it is not reported in any other sparrow.

The Cape sparrow mostly eats seeds, foraging in trees and on the ground.
The larger seeds of cereals, wild grasses, and other small plants are preferred, with wheat and khakiweed (Alternanthera caracasana) being favourites.
Buds and soft fruits are also taken, causing considerable damage to agriculture. Insects are eaten, and nestlings seem to be fed exclusively on caterpillars.
The Cape sparrow eats the soft shoots of plants, and probes in aloes for nectar, but these habits are not important sources of food.

It is an agricultural pest, especially of grain cultivation and vineyards. When vineyards in the south-west Cape started letting weeds grow between vines to conserve moisture around 1956, the Cape sparrow moved in. Cape sparrows quickly exhausted the seeds and started eating the grapes. The Cape sparrow is now a serious pest in vineyards. However, vineyards are not optimal habitat: some populations have had such a low reproductive success that they could not be maintained without immigration