What Do Sparrows Eat?

House sparrows commonly feed on grains, livestock feed, seeds, and discarded food for the ones found in the cities. They also feed on insects.

• The house sparrow is notable for its chunky body, full chest, stout bill, large round head, and their short tails.
• The house sparrow commonly inhabits urban, suburban, and agricultural areas.

Kenya sparrow feeds on small scraps, grains, and seeds. The young members of the Kenya sparrow are fed on insects.

• This sparrow is native to Kenya and Tanzania.
• It is also referred to as Kenya Rufous-Sparrow.
• It is found mostly in shrubland, grassland, and terrestrial lands.

The Italian sparrow’s diet includes a vast range of arthropods, seeds, gravel, and shell fragments.

• The Italian sparrow is found in wide distribution in Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Austria, and France.
• It mostly inhabits aquatic environments (marine and irrigated lands), pastureland, arable land, urban areas, rural gardens, plantations, grassland, forests, shrubland, rocky areas, and inland wetlands.

Eurasian tree sparrow consumes seeds, grasses, weeds, waste grain, and a variety of insects.

• This species is found in wide distribution in Eurasia.
• It inhabits farmlands, the open country, suburban areas, scattered bushes, trees, and woodland edges.

The great sparrow feeds on cultivated cereals and seeds. The nesting birds consume animal protein drawn from caterpillars.

• The great sparrow is widespread and found in abundance in South Africa, Botswana, Angola, and Namibia.
• It inhabits shrubland and savanna grassland.

Sparrows may eat insects, and they use an array of strategies to find this prey.

• One technique they use is ground gleaning.
• Sparrows may even pounce on insects in the air, or they may visit lights or lawnmowers to find insects and then proceed to ambush them.

Sparrows display diurnal activity.

• Meaning, sparrows will tend to be active during daylight hours.
• As such, most of them are likely to be found eating at this time.

How often sparrows eat depend on different factors, one being age.

• Young sparrows eat more frequently when they are featherless, and this is because of their growth needs. This eating behavior explains the reason why they are fed with more of animal protein obtained from organisms like insects and spiders.
• As sparrows get older, their feeding frequency reduces significantly, and they also tend to consume more of a plant-based diet.
• During winter, they spend much of their time resting in their nests to conserve their energy. They feed less frequently during this time.

Sparrows (of different life cycle stages) are prey to many predators.

• When considering the house sparrow (the most common sparrow), known predators of its eggs and the young members of the species include raccoons, domestic cats and dogs, snakes, and northern shrikes.
• Other predators include hawks, owls, and falcons.
• Another natural event that causes the sparrow eggs to be fly from their nests is gusty winds during rainy summer days.

Sparrows are essential to the animal food chain as prey and predators.

• They provide a good source of nutrition to organisms like snakes, owls, hawks, raccoons, dogs, and cats, and thus, promote their survival.
• In their role as predators, sparrows feed on earthworms and different kinds of arthropods with the example of ants and crickets.
• Hence, sparrows help keep the local population of these organisms under check.