House Sparrow
Passer domesticus · Sparrows
House Sparrow at the fountain
Central Park, 26 October 2025
A House Sparrow with its wings half-raised mid-splash on the rim of a bronze fountain in Central Park, water still hanging in the air around it. House Sparrows live wherever people do, and a Central Park fountain is about as far from a wild sparrow's life as the species has managed anywhere.
The statuary is doing double duty as backdrop and birdbath. Every House Sparrow in North America descends from a few dozen birds released in Brooklyn in the 1850s.
House Sparrow
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 24 August 2025
A House Sparrow on a sunflower head in the Botanic Garden in August, one of the seed sources that helped the species conquer a continent. House Sparrows live wherever people do, on every continent but Antarctica, and every one in North America descends from birds deliberately released in Brooklyn in 1851, in an attempt to control canker worms.
The population spread across the whole continent within a century. The bird is now declining across much of its range, London included, and nobody is quite sure why.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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