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House Sparrow Nests Tracked Building Design More Than Urbanisation

Male House Sparrows at Victoria Garden, Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka
Research · Ecology

A survey in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka, recorded 185 active house sparrow (Passer domesticus) nests across an urban-to-exurban gradient. House sparrows have declined in many parts of their global range, making Nuwara Eliya’s conspicuous breeding population a useful contrast. The number of active nests did not differ significantly among the four broad habitat categories and was not significantly predicted by the proportion of building cover or green cover.

Researchers surveyed 20 ten-hectare plots from February to May 2025, covering urban, suburban, periurban and exurban settings. Each active nest was assigned to a nesting substrate and the building type on which it occurred. Substrates included nestboxes, spaces beneath roofing sheets, wall holes and crevices, gutters, ceilings, beams and electrical meter boxes.

Building details mattered more than broad urbanisation labels

Nest-substrate use was strongly non-random and was more closely associated with building architecture than with the broad habitat categories. Residential houses held 45 nests in nestboxes and another 53 in ceilings or on beams. Shops supported 15 nestbox nests and 11 beneath roofing sheets, while wall holes, gutters, electrical meter boxes and other cavities were used on different building types. The pattern shows that sparrows were responding to the nesting opportunities provided by particular structures rather than simply to whether the surrounding plot was labelled urban or exurban.

Nestboxes may help preserve nesting opportunities

The authors highlight widespread nestbox provision as a distinctive feature of Nuwara Eliya and suggest that this human provisioning, together with the sparrows’ flexibility in using varied architectural features, may help sustain the conspicuous local breeding population. The study shows that nestboxes and other structural features provide nesting opportunities, but it did not measure whether those sites produced more fledglings or improved population growth. The authors therefore interpret the immediate structure of buildings as more important for nest-site occupancy than broad urbanisation labels in this study.

The study was limited to a single breeding season, and each plot was surveyed only once. Because it relied on observed active nests, hidden nests may have been missed more often than visible exterior nests or nestboxes. It also did not measure reproductive success. The authors therefore call for multi-season monitoring and studies of marked birds to test nest-site fidelity, breeding outcomes and longer-term population viability.

Sources and image credit

  1. Rathnasooriya, W. L. D., & Nilanga, K. D. B. (2026). Nest site and nesting substrate selection by House Sparrows along an urban gradient in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. Ornis Hungarica, 34(1), 423–436. https://doi.org/10.2478/orhu-2026-0030Primary peer-reviewed study published 6 June 2026. Surveys of 20 plots from February to May 2025 recorded 185 active house sparrow nests. Nest abundance did not differ significantly among the four habitat categories and was not significantly predicted by building or green cover. Nest-substrate selection was more strongly associated with building architecture than with broad habitat category; nestboxes were especially frequent on houses (n=45). The authors note that the one-season observational survey may be affected by nest-detection bias and did not measure reproductive outcomes.

Image: Lip Kee Yap / Wikimedia Commons — male house sparrows at Victoria Garden, Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka, 7 February 2011; cropped to 16:9. Representative image for this story; not presented as an animal or scene from the reported study or event. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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