Parisian Birds

On our way to the Louvre we passed by a number of churches, restaurants, statues and fountains. The fountains and other forms of water installation seem to be useful for the birds…they get to drink and bathe there. And what do you know,what I thought of as maya when I was a child were all-over the place!

I said “I thought of” because I grew thinking that the former (until 1995) Philippine National bird are the ones pictured below. Well, no one corrected me then and perhaps we all thought that these are the real maya. Researching though lead me to understand that these are actually  Eurasian Tree Sparrows, which can be found mostly in Southeast Asia, some subspecies in America and of course Eurasia where it got its name but as said I saw them in Paris – in September and in Germany also during autumn and in Vienna last spring.

I read somewhere that they are called German Sparrow as well. 🙂

By the way, the real maya have reddish brown feathers with a black head. It is rightfully called Black-headed Munia which also gained the name maya pula (red maya) to differentiate them from the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.