The Sudan Golden Sparrow (Passer luteus) is a small bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the sparrow

Sparrow

The sparrows are a family of small passerine birds, Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a genus of the family, Passer...

 family, found to the south of the Sahara Desert in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. It is a popular cage bird, and in aviculture it is known as the Golden Song Sparrow. The Arabian Golden Sparrow

Arabian Golden Sparrow

The Arabian Golden Sparrow is a sparrow found in south west Arabia and also the coast of Somalia and Djibouti where it occurs in thorn savanna and scrub habitats. It is sometimes considered as a subspecies of the Sudan Golden Sparrow .- External links :*...

 and this species are sometimes considered one species, the Golden Sparrow.

Description

The Sudan Golden Sparrow is a smaller sparrow, at 12–13 cm (4.7–5.1 in) in length, with a wingspan of 5.7–7 cm (2.2–2.8 in). Males are distinctive in their bright yellow head and underparts, deep chestnut brown wings and back, and two white wingbars. In the breeding season the male's plumage is brighter still, and the bill changes colour from horn to shiny black. Females are pale sandy-buff with yellowish face, light brown wings, a back faintly streaked with chestnut, and pale yellow fading to whitish on the underparts. Juveniles are similar to females, but greyer. After about 10 weeks young males may start to get a yellow wash around the shoulder area. Its basic call is a chirp or tchirrup, similar to that of other sparrows. Variations include a song-like call, and a rapid rhythmic che-che-che.

Distribution and habitat

It breeds across Africa to the south of the Sahara from Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

 east to Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

 and Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. It is a bird of dry open savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

, semi-desert, arid scrub and cereal cultivation.

Behaviour

The Sudan Golden Sparrow is a highly gregarious and nomadic bird and will form mixed flocks with other seed-eating birds, such as Red-billed Quelea

Red-billed Quelea

The Red-billed Quelea is the world's most abundant wild bird species, with an estimated adult breeding population of 1.5 billion pairs. Some estimates of the overall population have been as large as 10 billion...

, and other sparrows. Evening roosts, often in cities like Khartoum

Khartoum

Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

, may number hundreds of thousands of birds. It eats seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s and takes some insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, especially when feeding young. In captivity it is fed the mixture of foxtail millet

Foxtail millet

Foxtail millet is the second most widely planted species of millet, and the most important in East Asia. It has the longest history of cultivation among the millets, having been grown in China since sometime in the sixth millennium BC...

 and other grains with vegetables, mealworm

Mealworm

Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor, a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult...

s, and other supplements usually fed to weavers.
It breeds in large colonies and builds a very large, untidy, domed nest of twigs in a tree. The feather-lined nest chamber holds a typical clutch of three to four dark-spotted white eggs.