Ecology and Behavior
The average territory size of Rufous-crowned Sparrows in the chaparral of California ranges from 2 acres (0.97723722095581 ha) to 4 acres (1.9544744419116 ha). The density of territories varies by habitat, including 2.5 to 5.8 territories per 99 acres (40.066726059188 ha) of three- to five-year-old burned chaparral to 3.9 to 6.9 territories for the same amount of coastal scrubland. One pair tends to be supported by a territory, although birds without a mate have been seen sharing a territory with a mated pair.
This sparrow is awkward in flight and primarily uses running and hopping to move. The Rufous-crowned Sparrow will at times forage in pairs during the breeding season, and in family-sized flocks in late summer and early autumn. During the winter they can occasionally be found in loose mixed-species foraging flocks.
Predators of adult sparrows include house cats and small raptors like Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks, American Kestrels, and White-tailed Kites. The nests may be raided by a range of species including mammals and reptiles such as snakes, though nest predation has not yet been directly observed, and nesting sparrows have been observed using three kinds of displays to distract potential predators; the rodent run, the broken wing, and the tumbling off the bush. Birds adopt a rodent run display to distract predators. The head, neck and tail are lowered, wings held out, and feathers fluffed as the bird runs rapidly and voices a continuous alarm call. In the broken wing display, the sparrow imitates having a broken wing by dropping one to the ground and hopping away from the nest, leading the predator away until the bird ceases the act and escapes the predator. The adult Rufous-crowned Sparrow distracts a nest predator by falling from the top of a bush to attract the predator to itself in the tumbling off the bush display.
The longest lifespan recorded for a Rufous-crowned Sparrow is three years, two months. Two species of tick, Amblyomma americanum and Ixodes pacificus, are known to parasitize the sparrow.
Read more about this topic: Rufous-crowned Sparrow
Famous quotes containing the words ecology and/or behavior:
“... the fundamental principles of ecology govern our lives wherever we live, and ... we must wake up to this fact or be lost.”
—Karin Sheldon (b. c. 1945)
“No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual’s individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol—cross or crescent or whatever—that symbol is man’s reminder of his duty inside the human race.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)