Passer domesticus are often described as dull-coloured, stubby beaked and annoyingly noisy – the poor things! Nevertheless, house sparrows are among the most common birds in the world, having spread alongside Homo sapiens to almost every corner of Earth. They’ve been spotted near the tops of American skyscrapers and deep in Yorkshire mines. Unlike the song sparrow, Melospiza melodia, house sparrows are not known to mimic other species. But, in this world, everyone’s different.