October Sparrow Challenge

Obviously I have a bit of catching up to do on this blog! Given current circumstances I now have time to do it, so let's start by going waaaay back to October when Jen announced that the monthly 5MR challenge would be... sparrows! Or more specifically, how many sparrow species you could find in your radius.

And in Australia this is a bit of a challenge. We only have two sparrow species, with both of them being introduced. House Sparrows are pretty common in my 5MR, as they are in most of Melbourne, but the Eurasian Tree Sparrow not so much. There are a few reliable locations where birders will seek them out because a tick is a tick after all, but none that I knew of anywhere near my 5MR.

the only time I've seen them is at Serendip - this scruffy-looking one is from 2018

But in August I saw an eBird report of some Eurasian Tree Sparrows in Abbotsford - interesting! I had been thinking about going to a market at Abbotsford Convent anyway, and then Jen announced the challenge so really I had no excuse by then but to go and look for them.

PT birding!

I was catching public transport to the market and my walk from the station would take me right past the location mentioned in the report - see, no excuse!

And by the way, a warning: I didn't take my binoculars or camera with me on this outing so if you're offended by phone photos in which you can barely see any birds, look away now.

first birds off the train were Feral Pigeons and Common Blackbird

Pretty much as soon as I got down to Johnston Street I heard the cheep-cheeping of sparrows...

over there!

Johnston Street was very quiet at that time of morning so I easily got across to find a few sparrows hopping around outside a cafe. And yes, they were Eurasian Tree Sparrows!

as you can totally see in this picture

or maybe in this one after some major cropping?

They didn't hang around for long though, and took off across the buildings and out of sight.

I was a bit early for the market so went for a short walk around the block to Victoria Park, in the same direction the sparrows had gone. The birds around were all pretty typical of the inner city - mostly introduced species with a few Red Wattlebirds, Noisy Miners as well as Rainbow Lorikeets flying over.

Spotted Dove

Feral Pigeon

raptor sp.

And on my walk down to the convent I also saw plenty of House Sparrows.

House Sparrow

So both possible sparrow species in one go for the October challenge, and a new bird for both the 5MR 2019 challenge and for my 5MR life list!

After the Eurasian Tree Sparrow I was at a total of 88 species for the year challenge. I did manage to add a few more, so stay tuned for a belated 2019 wrap-up - hopefully coming soon!