2024/12/04 by Mohan Kukreti · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Avian ecology and behavior #Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior #Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
paper · pdf · doi:10.4081/rio.2024.742
openalex publication_date 2024/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article presents different nesting strategies of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) during the 2018 breeding season in a rural area of the outer western Himalayas of Uttarakhand state, India. These observations show house sparrows breeding in a usurped nest of red-rumped swallows (Cecropis daurica), probably the first such record from the western part of India. The unusual use of an anthropogenic object, a shoe, as a nest site was observed. However, more generally, a preference for secondary cavity-nesting strategies associated with the traditional, concrete, and modified traditional houses was found. Behavioural strategies associated with these breeding records have also been reported in this study, showing short-term adaptation or behavioural flexibility of the house sparrow to cope with intra- and interspecific pressures in the breeding season.