Jeff Wendorff's bird photography portfolio of juncos, towhees and sparrows from the family, Emberizidae.
Sparrow Wiki The Emberizidae are a large family of seed-eating passerine birds with distinctively finch-like bills.
In Europe, most species are called buntings. In North America, most of the species in this family are known as (American) sparrows, but these birds are not closely related to the (Old World) sparrows, in the family Passeridae. The family also includes the North American birds known as juncos and towhees.
It was hypothesized that the family Emberizidae may have originated in South America and spread first into North America before crossing into eastern Asia and continuing to move west. This would explain the comparative paucity of emberizid species in Europe and Africa compared to the Americas. However, a DNA sequence-based study of passerines concluded emberizids spread from North to South America.
As with several other passerine families, the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux. Many genera in South and Central America are, in fact, more closely related to several different tanager clades, and at least one tanager genus (Chlorospingus) may belong here in the Emberizidae.
Antbirds Photographed Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis Brewer's Sparrow, Spizella breweri Chestnut-capped Brush-Finch, Arremon brunneinucha Field Sparrow, Spizella pusilla Fox Sparrow (Sooty), Passerelia iliaca Golden-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia atricapilla Lark Sparrow, Chondestes grammacus Olive Sparrow, Arremonops rufivirgatus Rufous-collared Sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis Rufous-winged Sparrow, Peucaea carpalis Savannah Sparrow, Passerculus sandwichensis Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys White-eared Ground Sparrow, Melozone leucotis White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis Yellow-thighed Finch, Pselliophorus tibialis Sparrows Collective Noun Naturally with the love hate relationship people have with sparrows, there are numerous collective nouns the lowly sparrow. Some of the sparrows collective nouns are a crew, flutter, host, meinie, quarrel, tribe, ubiquity, host, and a knot. My preference for the ubiquitous sparrow is of course a ubiquity!
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