Passero Passer italiae x hispaniolensis nidificante su barca da pesca in Sicilia

This short note reports the curious breeding, in terms of nest features, of several Sparrows mainly showing the phenotype of the Spanish Sparrow or Passer prope hispaniolensis, though, few males exhibited less barred flanks as for the Passer italiae. This is in agre- ement with the ambiguous taxonomy of Sparrows of Sicily that is emerged over the past 150 years. As matter of fact, the taxonomic classification of the Sicilian sparrow spans from Passer hispaniolen- sis to Passer italiae and includes hybrid species in between. Massa et al (2022) propose to name these populations Passer italiae x hispa- niolensis. Here, for the first time, the curious nesting of Passer prope hispa- niolensis on Ligurian fishing boats (gozzi) moored at Margi Spanò near Petrosino (western Sicily) is reported and discussed. Such behavior has been already observed for aquatic species belonging to the families of Anatidae, Sulidae and Rallidae, but it represents unusual behavior for Passeriformes. It is worth noting that, among the observed individuals, at least 12 pairs of Sparrow used five different moored boats as nesting sites. Nest predation has a strong impact on the reproductive success of birds. The choice of nesting on boats might represent a strategy the sparrow intentionally adopted to increase their fledging and, hence, sur- vival rate.