IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

A typical sparrow-like ‘cheep’, ‘chreep’ or ‘thwik’ is heard in the non-breeding season.

A double-note and higher-pitched ‘chireep’ is uttered as call and song. In this recording the female can be heard giving a shorter and quieter ‘chup’ note.

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE

Most observations of Russet Sparrow in HK have come from Long Valley where it is found in harvested rice fields and patches of long grass and reeds. The handful of records elsewhere have largely come from fish pond areas, whilst a bird trapped at Mai Po was found in a reedbed.

OCCURRENCE

Carey et al. (2001) recognised ten records, all of single individuals during 1987 to 1997, as probably relating to wild birds, and described Russet Sparrow as a scarce autumn migrant (seen between 8 September and 3 October), winter visitor (seen between 13 November to 29 December) and spring migrant on 27 March and 1 April. However, they also cautioned that Russet Sparrow was seen in captivity in HK and that there were a number of other records that most likely referred to ex-captive birds, and suggested some of the records listed as likely wild birds were possibly ex-captive, with those in autumn perhaps the most suspect.

There were nine further records of 13 birds in the period from 1998 – 2010, of which all but one showed evidence of captive origin; as a consequence, all records were reviewed and in 2011 it was concluded that there were no records that could definitely be attributed to wild birds and Russet Sparrow was moved to Category III of the HK List.

Ironically, however, no sooner had this decision been made than a series of late autumn records of birds found in the harvested rice fields at Long Valley commenced, beginning with a flock of six birds (two males and four females) during 27 October to 6 November 2011. On the strength of this, and five further records of up to 14 birds during 2012-14, largely at Long Valley, but including a bird trapped at Mai Po, the status of Russet Sparrow was reviewed and it was reinstated on Category I of the HK list in 2014.

Subsequently, Russet Sparrow was recorded annually in HK involving up to 15 birds at usually one or two sites, though it was recorded at four sites in 2020. Most records have fallen between 4 October and mid-November, with a handful seen through the winter until 28 February and a single observation of up to three individuals from 7 March to 11 April 2016 at Long Valley, at which 93% of birds have been seen and where the peak count concerns a flock of up to 14 birds from 25 October to 2 November 2012. The five records from elsewhere all involved single birds in the northern New Territories: at Ma Tso Lung, Lok Ma Chau Loop, San Tin and Mai Po. An observation of a single bird at North District Park, Sheung Shui on 3 January 2016 (Allcock et al. 2018) is from an anomalous location and habitat and there must be a suspicion that it concerns an ex-captive bird.

It does appear likely that the change in status of Russet Sparrow in HK since 2011 is directly linked with the resumption of regular rice growing in Long Valley. In that light it is perhaps surprising that early observers did not see it in HK when rice was still widely grown. Though Vaughan and Jones (1913) considered it to be a ‘fairly common bird of passage’ in April and observed ‘a large flock’ in January on the West River, their only reference to its occurrence in HK was to its sometimes being found ‘crowded together’ with Tree Sparrows in bird shops. This observation was repeated by Herklots (1953) who attributed its absence from HK to its being ‘essentially a mountain bird’ [in Guangdong]. Herklots (1967) referred to a bird on the upper slopes of Tai Mo Shan on 10 December 1960, but Webster (1975) considered that it may have been misidentified.

BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET

Birds seen in HK have usually been seen foraging on the ground or perching in bushes or on wires, sometimes in small parties. Except when foraging they tend not to join flocks of Eurasian Tree Sparrows but remain separate, a trait also observed in Guangdong by Vaughan and Jones (1913).

Birds seen in HK have been observed foraging in rice fields, both before and after harvest, presumably eating rice grains; Vaughan and Jones (1913) referred to the crops of birds that they examined, presumably in Guangdong, as being ‘full of rice-grains’.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS

The range extends from eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan eastwards through Nepal and northern India and south to central Myanmar, Thailand and north Indochina (Summers-Smith 2020). It occurs through most of south and east China west to south Tibet and Yunnan, north to Sichuan in the west and to around Beijing in the east, as well as Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and throughout Japan. It appears to be rather sparsely distributed in the south of its range in China, where it has a rather limited distribution in Guangxi and Guangdong and is absent from Hainan (Liu and Chen 2021, eBird 2022).

There are three races, all of which occur in China: the nominate in south Tibet, P. c. rutilans in central China and P. r. intensior in the south. It is not known to which of these birds seen in HK belong; whilst intensior breeds closer, birds breeding north of the Yangtze River are migratory (Liu and Chen 2021), and hence perhaps more likely to wander south.

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.