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Finding a high quality territory is essential for many animals to reproduce successfully. Despite its importance for fitness, we know little about the process of territory prospecting in wild birds, and whether individual traits and behaviours, such as personality, co‐vary with territory prospecting. Here, we use long‐term data from a wild, insular house sparrow Passer domesticus population to test three hypotheses about territory fidelity and prospecting: 1) house sparrows show high territory fidelity between years and also during winter. 2) Individuals will prospect for a breeding territory during their first winter whereas older, more experienced individuals will keep a territory from previous years and will, therefore, show no or reduced winter territory prospecting. 3) More active behavioural types will prospect more than less active behavioural types. We use data from four winters from automatically, daily recorded nest‐box …