House Sparrow chirping

Male House Sparrows still have greyish fringes on the the feathers of their their bibs and heads, so they are still not looking their best. They are starting to become more active though, chirping from the inside of bushes. This one was right inside a rose bush, but somehow I manage to get a clear field of view and take some close ups while it chirped.

A sand bath

A group of sparrows sat by a hedge on a local wildlife reserve. A male came to the ground and started dust bathing on a hollow in the sandy soil, using the same movements bird display when water bathing. Sparrows are known for bathing in water and also in dust. Both are ways to keep plumage in top condition and might help with keeping parasite load reduced. Other birds known to sand bath include wrens, larks, bee eaters, some raptors, hoopoes and chickens, most of them live in habitats where standing water is scarce.

 As bathing, or preening, individuals of a group will join in a communal dust bath as shown in this photo.

House Sparrow

House sparrows have now finished moulting and males are donning their more subdued winter attire. The new feathers have buff fringes that tone down their deep chestnut head and black bib. The bill is also yellowish. This one posed for a few seconds on top of a wire fence before flying away.

House Sparrow communal courtship

 House Sparrows are quite vocal birds. In spring, a house sparrow colony is hard to miss, with males advertising their chosen nest sites to potential males by chirping and posturing, but mainly by their peculiar communal courtship. Communal courtships start when a fertile female not guarded by her mate flies by an unmated male, the male then will pursue her while chirping and displaying persistently soliciting copulation. More males usually join in the female chase and courtship in a cacophony of strident chirps. The female is far from passive to the male's attentions, and often lunges and pecks at the males (photo below), which seem quite unfazed. Forced copulations - and also accepted copulations - occur during these communal courtship displays.
 Male sparrows with large black chest badges are more dominant in the sparrow colony. They guard their mates during the fertile period - around the period when egg-laying is taking place - and copulate with her frequently. But males with large, in addition, join communal courtships more often than males with small bibs, so these dominant males may achieve paternity both though their mate's offspring, and through extra-pair copulations.
 Today, in a local farm, I managed to get these shots of communal courtship in House Sparrows. Two or three males were harassing a female, and she managed to peck one of the males (below).

ouch!

More information

Moller, A. (1990). Sexual behavior is related to badge size in the house sparrow Passer domesticus Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 27 (1) DOI: 10.1007/BF00183309

On Sparrow Bibs

Male sparrows are now beginning to show the urge of starting their breeding territories. I have seen several males chirping constantly from house eaves, a common nest site. When chirping, sparrows show off their fluffed up black chest bib. Sparrow bibs vary considerably in size between individual sparrows.

Figure showing variation in badge size in Male House Sparrows (from Moller 1987). See also the photos below.

Research has shown that bib size functions as a 'badge of status' and individuals with large badges enjoy a dominant status in the flock. Large badge individuals also obtain earlier mates as females prefer them and enjoy more reproductive success. Males with large badges seemed also better at defending their females from sexual harassment in multi-male chases. Large badges carried a cost though. Sparrowhawks, the main predators in the study took males with large bibs more often than males with small bibs during the autumn. The explanation was than high reproductive success had a cost in the condition of the bird at the end of the season. The study showed that sexual selection - female choice - and natural selection through predation acted in opposite directions in determining bib size.

A large bib male in my garden flock

A small bib male

References
Moller, A.P. 1987. Variation in badge size in male sparrows Passer domesticus: evidence for status signalling. Animal Behaviour, 35:1637-1644. here.

Moller, A.P. 1989. Natural and sexual selection on a plumage signal status and on morphology in house sparrows, Passer domesticus. Journal of evolutionary Biology, 2:125-140. here.