The Tree Sparrow (or Eurasian Tree Sparrow in the United States) is a cute little bird with a chestnut crown and black patch on its white cheeks. It is a widespread bird in urban areas throughout Asia, but in Europe it prefers to live in lightly wooded countryside. There is also a small population of about 15,000 birds in North America, primarily around St Louis and parts of Illinois and Iowa. They are descendants from 12 birds imported from Germany and released in 1870 as part of a project to enhance the native North American avifauna.
The Eurasian Tree Sparrow is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2015 by BirdLife International. This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (extent of occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). The population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
Back in June we introduced the Birdorable Tree Sparrow. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow is a small passerine bird related the the House Sparrow. Tree Sparrows live across much of Europe and Asia, although numbers are declining in some parts of western Europe. Read more »
We've added a few new Birdorable birds this week, the first one being this Eurasian Tree Sparrow. In eastern Asia this cute little bird is widespread in towns and cities, but in Europe, where the Read more »
