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The Hidden Qualities of House Sparrows

10,000 Birds

As we move from Spain towards the east however, it starts getting interesting as soon as we reach Italy. Italy has an almost endemic … well … “form” of Sparrow, the Italian Sparrow , whose taxonomic affinities and rank have been a matter of dispute ever since scientists started to think about it.

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The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving

10,000 Birds

Dates of first arrival listed by Schorger (1966) are: Italy 1520, Germany 1530, France 1538, England 1541, Denmark and Norway 1550, Sweden 1556. Early research suggested that “Fragmented distributions and population bottlenecks due to human activities appear to have increased genetic differentiation among populations” (Leberg 1991).

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