Arkostrouthos - Spanish sparrow / willow sparrow, tree sparrow

μελανιά, μηλιάτσος, κιρμίζι, αγριοσταφίδα “Spanish sparrow (willow sparrow) is a bird that lives permanently in Cyprus, but also passes in very large numbers when it migrates from Europe to Africa, especially in autumn. Then thousands of birds pass through Marathasa coming from Turkey, entering from Cape Kormakitis and the Gulf of Morphou up to Pomos, crossing Marathasa and heading towards the Akrotiri peninsula and from there towards Egypt. The male is beautiful with a brown head, black neck and chest and large white spots under the eyes. His back is streaked with brown and grey colours and his belly is white with black spots on the ends. Like all species in its family, this is a chatty bird, especially during the mating season. The female is similar to the familiar common sparrow. It is about 6cm in size. It builds its nest in tall trees and in the holes between the branches of palm trees. It lives in groups, and we often see in one tree several nests joined together... It lays 4-9 eggs, blue in colour, with large brown spots. It feeds its young exclusively on insects, especially grasshoppers and caterpillars that it collects from grain plants and grasses.

Another species of arkostrouthos that is rarely found in Cyprus is Passer montanus (tree sparrow). It is smaller than the previous one, measuring up to 5.5cm in size; it has a brown head, a bit black on the neck, a white belly and grey stripes with brown on the back. It is distinguished from the other sparrows from the black colour under its eyes, within a white frame. It was first sighted in Cyprus in September 1969, when it was caught in Syrianochori along with several Spanish sparrows. Since then it has only been sighted twice. It lives in Europe and mainly in Romania' (Great Encyclopedia of Cyprus, vol. 2, entry αρκόστρουθος,ο, 306).