Three sparrows - warriors
The sparrow in the middle is a commander, left and right ones defend flanks. It seems the commander has got two tiny horns on its head. So it resembles an owl. On the side photo the horns seem are mere wet feathers.
A downy young sparrow
The yellow-bill sparrow stands in grass which is covered by cotton-like poplar fluff. This photo was taken in June 9, 2003 by a camera Nikon cp4500. The camera is still alive in 2010.
In Moscow our sparrows are very shy. So I could take the photo from quite a big distance about 2 or 3 meters with use a teleconverter 3x.
Modern cameras can do such work much better. Also modern sparrows are more brave and may jump just on your table in caffe.