The Eurasian tree sparrow breeds over most of temperate Eurasia and Southeast Asia where it is known as the tree sparrow. It has been introduced to the U.S. and other countries where it has been named the Eurasian tree sparrow and German sparrow to differentiate it from the American tree sparrow. There are three subspecies but they differ very little from each other. Its crown and nape are chestnut; it has white cheeks with a black kidney shaped ear patch; the chin and throat are black; the upperparts are light brown streaked with black; the brown wings have two narrow white bars; the legs are pale brown; and the bill is lead blue in summer and almost black in the winter.
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| Eurasian tree sparrow illustration from Birds of the World. |
I got some truly horrible photos of this bird, due to my broken, water-soaked camera, in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, on the edge of Gunung Leuser NP. We were staying in a hotel and these sparrows were all over the grounds.
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| The blue bill is visible in this blurry photo. |
Below is the range map from Birds of the World:
Yup, pretty bad photos. I'm impressed you can identify what the bird is, but once you have, it seems obvious.
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