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Northern Grey-Headed Sparrow | Passer griseus
Grijskopmus | Gorrión Gris
The Northern Grey-Headed Sparrow is a grey-headed sparrow of tropical Africa that meets its southern counterpart, Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow, at the extreme north of the region. It is closely tied to villages, homesteads and fields and is expanding its range to the east and south.
Voice
A simple, repeated cheep or chirp, given as song in a slow series, cheep-chirp-cheep. In alarm the typical sparrow churring churrrr.
Recording: András Schmidt — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15 to 16 cm, a robust sparrow with a plain dark ash-grey head and nape, a grey-brown mantle and a rufous lower back and rump. The shoulder is cinnamon-red, with a white patch of variable size on the median coverts. The throat is sharply defined white, contrasting with the grey breast; the belly is pale grey to dirty white. The bill is black when breeding, horn-coloured otherwise. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller and lack the white wing patch.
Confusion species
Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow (Passer diffusus) is smaller, paler and greyer, with a lighter grey head, a less sharply defined, dirty white throat and less rufous on the back; the boundary between the two in northern Zambia and Malawi is not always clear-cut, and intermediates occur. Female House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) has a buff eyebrow and a streaked back. In Northern Grey-Headed Sparrow look especially for the dark head, the clean white throat and the rufous back.
Habitat
Villages, homesteads, markets, fields and open woodland around human habitation, from sea level high into the mountains. It forages on the ground for seeds, grain and insects, also among refuse. It nests in roofs, holes in walls, old weaver nests and tree holes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in northern and central Angola, northern Zambia and northern Malawi, where it borders Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow in a narrow zone and may hybridise with it. Beyond the region widespread across tropical Africa, from Senegal and Mauritania to Ethiopia and south through Uganda and Tanzania.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search villages and around markets and grain stores in northern Zambia and Malawi. A grey-headed sparrow with a clean white throat and a rufous back is probably this species here; with pale birds with a dirty white throat rule out Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow first. In the contact zone it is better to record ‘grey-headed sparrow sp.’ than to guess.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common to very common across its large range and benefiting from the spread of villages and agriculture. In the region confined to the northern edge, where its distribution is still poorly mapped.
Scientific name
Passer griseus | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Fringilla grisea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Passer was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Passer is the Latin word for 'sparrow'. griseus is Medieval Latin for 'grey' — for the grey head. The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal (originally given in error as 'United States').