Rock Sparrow

Rock Sparrow, Pierre Belon (1517-1564) already called it this way in 1555 in his History of the Nature of Birds, the Latin name of the era was not Petronia petronia but Passer torquatus or collared sparrow, and the common name was forest sparrow. Pierre Belon tells us: We are right to call it the soulcase: for it has its eyes shaded with a white soulcase, on the eyebrows on each side of the head.
Our sparrow measures 15 cm. Its head has a very strong beak whose lower mandible is yellow while the upper one is yellowish-brownish with a darker tip. The crown is white in its center and bordered by two large brown stripes. Two large white eyebrows above the dark eyes are the distinctive mark of the Rock Sparrow. Behind the eyes, a dark post-ocular stripe accentuates the striped aspect of the head. The cheek-strips are light grey and more or less marked depending on the individuals. The whitish throat bears at its base a yellow spot which the bird does not always show.
The mantle and back are striped with beige and dark brown. The scapulars are marked at the end with brown and white. The wing covers are dark brown with a light edging. The remiges have the same colors but when the bird is at rest, only the grey-beige edgings can be seen. The rump is solid. The supracaudals, some of which are very long, are brown. The brown rectrices have a white spot on a blackish background at their tip.
The chest is white with slightly fuzzy light-brown vertical stripes. The flanks are striped more broadly in the same way. The white abdomen is not striped in its center. The under-tail coverts are transversely striped with brown and white. When the Rock Sparrow is perched and does not show its yellow spot, it could be mistaken for an Ortolan Bunting, the two species having a yellow beak.The legs are pink. There is no sexual dimorphism. The young ones are less marked with a dominant brown, the belly is not striated and the yellow spot is absent.