My neighbor Jan has no use for sparrows. If I mention the word, she visibly bristles and tells me again they don't belong here, were brought from England, force other birds from their nests and take over, and so forth.
I have told her that sparrows nest in the bird house on my bedroom deck.
"Oh yes," she'll say, "and they'll probably have three or more clutches in a season." And she's not happy about it.
She is right, though. They have at least two, sometimes three clutches. And they've been doing it on my deck for several years now.
But I can' help it. And I confess, I take some pleasure in watching them. Just now they're feeding babies. I can watch the swoop down to the grass or over to the trees and the return and careful entry into the house. I can hear the babies asking for food, and I often see father sparrow sitting on top of the bird house, calling out some important message.
As I said, it's not my fault they're here. But they are here. And, actually, they're ubiquitous, which may also bother Jan.
I don't know who is to blame for their introduction into America. Some sources say it may have been accidental.
Jan, I think, would like to blame someone. Sorry.
This from WikiPedia:
"You can find House Sparrows most places where there are houses (or other buildings), and few places where there aren’t. Along with two other introduced species, the European Starling and the Rock Pigeon, these are some of our most common birds. Their constant presence outside our doors makes them easy to overlook, and their tendency to displace native birds from nest boxes causes some people to resent them. But House Sparrows, with their capacity to live so intimately with us, are just beneficiaries of our own success."
Starlings. Now that's another matter. I don't care for them. Probably Jan doesn't either.
2 comments:
Or Magpies! Up until a couple of years ago when we had that bird virus going around, magpies had taken over our neighborhood and there were NO songbirds at all! That virus took out the magpies, and now we have songbirds again. Then there are the cowbirds -- they like to invade a nest, kick out the real eggs and lay their own, then fly away and let the poor unsuspecting nest-owning parent raise the cowbird babies!
Yes, I know about the brown-headed cowbird. When I was teaching at BSU, we devoted a good part of the semester to the study of birds. Did that for a few years. At first, my students thought it strange for an English class, but we learned a lot and loved it.
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