Sparrow with an elongated bill !

[cherokee]

We have a sparrow ( its definetely a sparrow) which visits our garden now and then which has an extremely long bill and dead straight ! I'd say the bill is, roughly, about an inch in length and my OH thinks it only affects the upper one, though I'd imagine it must affect both otherwise how would it feed? It looks in perfectly good health, though obviously, has trouble with eating from our bird feeder of nuts.

Is this a common occurence in sparrows and would it affect its health long term ?

[dafi]

Strange things do happen and birds bills do over grow although i dont think its that common. If the bird is still going then its probably coping fine with a deformity.

and its deffo a sprog and not the D word!:)

[nirofo]

Malformed beaks are quite common in birds, I once saw a Starling which had an upper mandible approx 1" longer than the bottom one. Here's a photo of a Black-headed Gull with a malformed beak.

Black-headed Gull with a malformed beak.
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/nirofo/Birds/Black-headedGullmaformedbeakcloseup.jpg

nirofo.

[cherokee]

Thanks guys for your information !! ;)

"Our" sparrow is obviously surviving quite well with it's deformity, so its good to know that its not that rare and that it shouldn't be that much of a problem for the wee thing !!

[Birding News]

Just a step in the complex world of evolution :)