i was in my kitchen when i saw this bird on my bird feeder. i immediately started snapping pics. do you know what bird it is? cant identify it anywhere! i have looked everywhere, its not a chipping sparrow or any other sparrows in the eastern side of the country.
It is a male House Sparrow.
Yep, House Sparrow.
Resin
Yes indeed- it is a Male House Sparrow.........I am from Ohio and have many of these birds on my farm! :)
Here's one of my male House Sparrows. I'm new to birding and so far I've seen a heap more females and juvies than males. Like yours, mine has a gray crown, but its hard to see it. Your pic kinda shows it. Both have the black spot on the throat.
Not a friendly bird when it comes to other birds, like blue birds, but still, I think the male has attractive coloration.
Hack
This message was edited Sep 22, 2009 10:36 PM
Many, especially Purple Martin affectionados , consider this bird a colossal pest. It is one of four species that lived when a "knight errant" decided to introduce to the New World all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare. The Starling is one of the others. Neither are protected by the government in any way as they aren't native. Both are "cavity dwellers" that will cabbage onto any and all housing that is available. Poor native birds can't compete.
The starling will outright kill other smaller birds for their houses, the sparrow will stab (called pinning) their eggs so that none will hatch. Glad I'm not a little bird.
I wish House Sparrows were so rare as to be unidentifiable around here; they monopolize our bird feeders making it hard to attract a big variety of species.
Stopped by my mom's today and their must have been at least 50 House Sparrow's under the feeder. Once the Mourning Doves get a lil lower in numbers, the neighborhood Cooper's Hawks will go to work, seems by spring the HS numbers decline some.
Here is a male house sparrow, taken during the non nesting season. Notice his bill is light in color.
Here is a male during nesting season. Notice his black bill.
Here is one in flight.
Poet, I can tell you from first hand experience that the house sparrow will do far more than puncture the eggs. A house wren will do that too.
During nesting season a male house sparrow looking for nesting space will kill a female bluebird or tree swallow sitting on her eggs, or kill nestlings and then build his nest right on top of their corpses. They often trap a male bluebird in the nestbox. The bluebird will instinctively defend the nest but he has no chance. The house sparow has a very hard beak. He grabs the other bird and immediately takes out the eyes, then he does severe damage to the head, often decapitating the other bird. I have never heard of a bluebird winning a fight with a house sparrow.
I lost my beloved male bluebird to a house sparrow this summer. I have pictures of his corpse but good taste and the rules of this forum keep me from posting them. Needless to say, I am not a fan.
Dave
Second Cousin,
I agree and left a lot out myself. I'm having no luck with bluebirds at all, and they are my favorites. They hunt are all over my pasture, I just can't get them into a box, maybe it's the HS as I can certainly get them into the boxes.
Maybe we should go to England and study the predators for the HS but there is a good parable that ends with: "It's difficult to remind yourself you just wanted to get rid of the turtles when you are up to your derriere with alligators."
Yes, a good example comes from Bermuda. Some fruit they imported brought with it fruit flies which had previously not existed on the island, so they introduced little lizards to eat them; the lizards became a nuisance, so next they brought in kiskadees (sp?) a lovely yellow bird which turned out to like fruit better than fruit flies.
Second,
that's the nature of this beast called human. Many years ago I studied art at the U of Alabama in Huntsville. We were required to view some paintings, one very large one was of a german shepherd lying dead on a bridge. It was photorealistic. Very close! Everyone in the class condemned the painting until I pointed out that it was probably the artist's dog. Most looked like they had been hit with a sledgehammer as realization hit.
Maybe we should go to England and study the predators for the HS
Well, maybe there is hope for us...eventually.
After I changed my feeders over to straight safflower seed to deter starlings and grackles, the house sparrows left along with them and have not returned. Coincidence?
I donno but I'll give it a try.
Resin,
Now that is absolutely fascinating! House Sparrows in decline in the British Isles? And I ranked them up there with ticks and sharks, but I hear the sharks are getting a bad go of it too. We need to find out what happened to the HS in England, maybe we could either replicate the curse, (what was that about alligators?), or convince ours to return to their bonnie homeland where they are so needed.
Not so much fascinating, as deeply worrying . . . what are we doing to our world? No-one knows why it is happening - some form of pollution perhaps, but what?
House Sparrow counts from Regents Park (a major public park close to the centre of London); all counts done in November:
Year - Count
1925 - 2,603
1948 - 885
1966 - 642
1975 - 544
1995 - 81
2000 - 8
2002 - 3
Data source - British Birds 94: 507 (2001) for the years up to 2000. The 2002 figure made the national news headlines.
Resin
I don't much like the House sparrows either. They get into my chicken coops and eat their feed and the Starlings do the same, and they P**P more than the chickens do! I did the Bird Count the last 2 years for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but Im not this year. I just dont feel like watching the House Sparrows and Starlings gobble up the feed I buy! I will hang suet feeders for the woodpeckers and chickadees though. The House Sparrows are taking over! Maybe they are gone in Great Brittain because they have it too good over here and invited all their relatives to move here! UGH!
I thought I had discouraged the sparrows that were raiding my chickens' food by changing from crumbles to pelleted food, but now I have ducklings eating crumbles again and they're back! They're not as messy as the ducks but much worse than the hens. In general though the pelleted feeds seem less appealing to birds. A change from grain to pellets chased the pigeons away from our horse/cattle feeders.
The HOSP here eat anything and everything I put out. Including the safflower and the cat food I put out for the crows and jays. I am very discouraged. The first year I lived there were none in my yard but now I have at least 25-30 in the immediate area of my yard.
I am considering no summer feeding next year.
