A Sparrow that looks Italian... but is it?

I've blogged about Italian Sparrows before, but I didn't expect to be blogging about one here in Norfolk!  On Sunday I popped up to see the sparrow at Northrepps that seems to show characteristics of the Italian form italiae, now treated by many authorities as a new species formed by hybrid speciation (i.e. a population of hybrids, in this case Spanish Sparrow x House Sparrow hybrids, that have become sufficiently reproductively isolated from either ancestor species to be treated as a new species).

 Italian-type Sparrow, Northrepps (Norfolk), 18th August 2013

 

It looks good!  But is it really an Italian Sparrow?

Here are the options...

1) Hybrid Tree Sparrow x House Sparrow has been suggested.  They occur occasionally so it wouldn't be all that exceptional - certainly more likely than an Italian Sparrow.  But other than lacking grey in the crown this bird doesn't really resemble Tree Sparrow.  Most (if not all) Tree x House Sparrow hybrids have grey in the crown, most have at least a hint of a dark cheek spot, most show buffier tones on the body, they should probably have a smaller bill than this bird.  I don't see anything to suggest Tree Sparrow involvement in this individual.

 Italian-type Sparrow, Northrepps (Norfolk), 18th August 2013

 

2) An aberrant House Sparrow.  This bird shows reddish-chestnut extending on to the breast band and the white supraloral stripe is virtually absent.  That could be explained by an excess of whatever pigment causes that chestnut colour (is that erythrism?) and if it has that sort of pigment issue then perhaps it could be affecting the crown too, flooding that with chestnut colour?  I think this suggestion deserves some merit, but it doesn't convince me.  It's not extremely unusual for House Sparrows to show very white cheeks, and perhaps the bill bulbous bill is within range for House Sparrow, but what are the odds of a House Sparrow with erythrism generating a completely chestnut crown like an Italian Sparrow also having white cheeks and a big bulbous bill?  I can't rule this option out, but I find it rather unlikely.

  Italian-type Sparrow, Northrepps (Norfolk), 18th August 2013

3) An Italian Sparrow, i.e. a vagrant from Italy or neighbouring regions.  Some features need explaining for this option, namely the chestnut on the breast, the restricted white supraloral and what looks like grey flecking in the crown.  The breast is easy - quite a few photos of Italian Sparrows have this.  It's not typical but it's not exceptional either.  The restricted white supraloral seems to be more unusual, but there are images online that seem to share this feature.  At least some of the grey flecks in the crown are not true plumage features but an effect of moult.  The bird has several loose or missing feathers and this seems to be revealing grey feather bases.  I'm not convinced that there really are any grey feathers in the crown, although this will perhaps become clearer when the bird has completed its moult.  So nothing here rules out Italian Sparrow, but we can't get away from the fact that it's not a completely typical Italian Sparrow.  If the odds of any Italian Sparrow turning up in a Northrepps garden are low then I'd have thought that the odds of one with chestnut on the breast and virtually no supraloral stripe are significantly lower.

 Italian-type Sparrow, Northrepps (Norfolk), 18th August 2013

4) A hybrid between a House Sparrow and a Spanish Sparrow.  There are a few references to hybrids between these species away from Italy.  Spanish Sparrow has occurred in the UK several times and some have been long-stayers oversummering with House Sparrows, so one producing hybrid offspring isn't very unlikely.  Sparrows tend to frequent places that aren't birding hotspots so it's plausible that even a male Spanish Sparrow could have summered and bred locally without being detected - and most birders would be hard-pushed to detect a vagrant female even if it was breeding in their own garden!  It's a pretty subjective call whether a hybrid Spanish x House Sparrow would be more or less likely than an Italian Sparrow to appear in Northrepps, but I am personally inclined to think such a hybrid might be rather more likely than a vagrant Italian.  As yet I haven't been able to track down any photos or descriptions of Spanish x House Sparrow hybrids, so I'm not sure how their appearance fits in with that of the Northrepps bird.  Given the history of Italian Sparrow it seems reasonable to summise that they look a lot like Italian Sparrows, and given that first generation hybrids between any two species (not in every case) tend to be a bit variable we might expect that it will look a lot like an Italian Sparrow but not necessarily exactly like a typical Italian Sparrow.  In other words they might look a bit like the Northrepps bird, perhaps.  But all that is guesswork - I don't actually know what Spanish x House Sparrow hybrids really do look like.  If you can point me to any references that show such a hybrid (proven or not) please leave a comment or get in touch!

 Italian-type Sparrow, Northrepps (Norfolk), 18th August 2013

Whatever it is it's an interesting bird - big thanks to Andy and Carl for finding it, letting us know and allowing me to visit.


Maybe DNA analysis will offer some answers in due course...

Ferruginous Ducks

A female Ferruginous Duck turned up in the Norfolk Broads a couple of years ago.  Eventually news of its presence reached the news services and lots of people went to see it.  Most of them were happy with the ID but one or two of the locals who'd originally found it and watched it for prolonged periods felt that it wasn't quite right - and was therefore a hybrid.  Last winter it returned, this time accompanied by what was certainly a hybrid, but the identity of the original bird was still doubted by some people.  I've heard three reasons cited why this bird may have been a hybrid:

1. The head shape was wrong, looking too rounded for much of the time and lacking the peak that is associated with pure Ferruginous Ducks.  My own views confirmed that this was the case - although on occasion it could look quite peaked, most of the time it looked very round.  But was this really wrong for females?  Certainly a male looking like this would and should arouse suspicion, but I wasn't quite convinced it was wrong for a female.  However I wasn't experienced enough with females to be sure.
2. The bill shape was considered not quite right.  Personally I thought it looked ok: although at some angles it sometimes looked a bit dubious I couldn't see anything hugely concerning in the bill shape.
3. The white on the belly had been observed to be too indistinctly-bordered for a pure Ferruginous Duck.  I got a couple of brief views of its belly and to be honest I didn't think it was too indistinct.  Sure it wasn't as neat and tidy as it can be on a male, but it wasn't bad.

Personally I suspected it was the genuine thing, a pure Ferruginous Duck.  But although I've seen a few Ferruginous Ducks they've all be in the UK where any record is tainted with the possibility that it's escaped from a collection and may not be pure.  Also most of the birds I've seen have been males.  I simply wasn't experienced enough with wild female Ferruginous Ducks to be able to make a watertight case for it being a pure bird.  It certainly wasn't a first-generation hybrid but a hybrid backcrossed with Ferruginous Duck would be feasible in captivity and some people felt this was the most likely ID.

Ferruginous Duck, Cockshoot Broad, 12th November 2011

In Sicily I got the opportunity to study a number of Ferruginous Ducks in the wild that were free from the curse of uncertain provenance and were unlikely to be hybrids (at least not all of them!).  I learnt the following:

1. The rounded head shape shown by the Norfolk Broads bird was perfectly normal for female Ferruginous Duck.  Just like the Norfolk bird, the females I observed in Sicily changed their head shape according to posture, sometimes looking peaked but most of the time looking rounded.  I could see no difference in head shape between the Norfolk bird and the birds in Sicily. 
2. The apparent bill shape varied too.  Some birds, some of the time, seemed to have much less impressive bill shapes than the Norfolk bird.  Of course this has more to do with angle to the observer than anything else, but there did seem to be a little variation in the bill shape - some females seemed to have fractionally shorter and more concave bills than expected.
3. Females seen in flight and rearing up clearly showed variation in the belly pattern.  Some were less well-defined than the Norfolk bird.  One bird was much less so, although I did wonder if the poor definition on that bird wasn't caused by dirt rather than actual plumage pattern.

 Ferruginous Duck, Granelli (Sicily), 1st May 2012

Ferruginous Ducks, Granelli (Sicily), 29th April 2012

I noticed a couple of things about the males too that I've sometimes wondered about when I've observed this on birds in Britain:

1. The head can look rounded on males too, though with prolonged viewing it always reverted to the classic peaked shape.
2. The contrast between the breast and the flanks varies according to angle to the light.  The same bird can change from having no discernible contrast whatsoever between the colour of the breast and the colour of the flanks to having such a strong contrast that it made me think for a moment that I must have found a hybrid. I knew this was the case on some of the British birds I've observed but it was reassuring to see that it was also the case on genuine wild birds in Sicily.

Ferruginous Ducks, Granelli (Sicily), 29th April 2012

Lots more photos of Ferruginous Ducks from Norfolk and from Sicily at http://www.gobirding.eu/Photos/FerruginousDuck.php

When Italian looks Spanish

I was fascinated by the sparrows in Sicily.  Some of them looked like textbook Italian Sparrows while others looked pretty much like textbook Spanish Sparrows.  Apparently they're all Italian Sparrows, despite their Spanish appearance.  Many flocks contained both types of birds and anything in between.

If I've understood correctly, Italian Sparrows were originally hybrids between House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow, but the hybrids have become so stable and isolated from both House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow that they can now be considered a species in their own right.  The posh term is homoploid hybrid speciation, I think.  You can read all about  it here (which I discovered from this Surfbirds discussion - thanks to Brian & Alex).

I wonder though... are they really all that stable and isolated, all the way across their range?  For most of Italy, where they all resemble textbook Italian Sparrows (so far as I know - I've never been to most of Italy) that makes sense to me.  But here in Sicily, where I'd struggle to separate many of them from Spanish Sparrows, could it be that they are still subject to ongoing (or at least very recent) genetic exchange with Spanish Sparrows?  Or are some of them really Spanish Sparrows?

Anyway, here are some pics showing some of the variation:

Italian Sparrow, Siracusa, 23rd April

Italian Sparrows, Capo Murro di Porco, 2nd May

 

 

 

Italian Sparrows, Monteluce (Vendicari), 29th April

 

Italian Sparrow, Riserva Naturale Orientata Fiume Ciane, 23rd April

 

Italian Sparrow, Valle di Templi (Agrigento), 27th April

 

Italian Sparrow, Capo Murro di Porco, 3rd May

 

Italian Sparrows, Riserva Naturale Orientata Biviere di Gela, 28th April 2012

 

Italian Sparrow, Monteluce (Vendicari), 28th April 2012

 

Italian Sparrows, Granelli, 29th April 2012

  

Italian Sparrow, Etna South, 25th April 2012

Here are a couple of females... some of these looked more distinctive than some female Spanish Sparrows while I doubt if others could be safely separated from House Sparrow.

  

Italian Sparrow, Capo Murro di Porco,24th April 2012

 

  

Italian Sparrow, Etna South, 25th April 2012