Last Thursday, I stayed home from work because my car was demolished in an accident. I’m OK, but my car is not. Even as you read this, the fate of this faithful vehicle hangs in the balance. Is it repairable, or is it time to say goodbye? Only time will tell.
So, rather than greet the smiling faces of my students, I sat by my kitchen window and watched as the birds arrived for breakfast. One by one, the familiar species showed up and things were all going along quite nicely. Then, I noticed a remarkable bird on the railing. It was a common grackle and it had symmetrical white patches of feathers around the ears and another on the throat. This was extremely unusual and it genuinely warranted a photo, but I had left my camera up in my office.
By the time I got back down to the window, the bird had moved off. So, I made a pot of tea and settled in for a long session of waiting. I did end up seeing that grackle again, but it was visiting the feeder in my neighbor’s yard and it was too far away to get good photos. This will be a bird on my personal “most wanted” list for the foreseeable future, however, so don’t be surprised if you see it featured in a column in the coming weeks.
Though I was not successful in getting a photo of that odd grackle, the endeavor was by no means a failure. I spent a long time sitting in the quiet and looking out the window at the riot of activity that transpired on my deck. Lots of good ideas started to form in my mind, which was not saddled with the ever-present threat of digital overload from all sorts of modern technology. Best of all, I got the idea to do a series on the sparrows you might see at your feeders in winter.
I was particularly delighted to see my first American tree sparrow of the year. I was equally annoyed to see a group of house sparrows show up as well. Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t really talked about house sparrows in a while, and when I checked my records, I was more than a little surprised to find that it has been over eight years. Where has the time gone?
To start off my series on sparrows, I will start with what could arguably be described as the most common species of them all — the house sparrow (Passer domesticus).
If you live anywhere near a city, where there are fast food restaurants, supermarkets and buildings with illuminated signs, then you’ve probably seen a house sparrow. Or, if you live in the country where there is open pasture, farms, livestock and barns, then you, too, have probably seen a house sparrow. Most remarkable of all, however, is the fact that house sparrows abound in urban areas. So if you’ve ever been to Springfield, Worcester or Boston, then you’ve probably seen a house sparrow there as well.
That last habitat, the urban zone, is what makes house sparrows somewhat appealing. The concrete jungle offers little space for wild creatures that can soften its edges, but that little space seems more than adequate for house sparrows. In fact, three of our most annoying avian pests (the pigeon, the starling and the house sparrow) seem to thrive in urban areas, with the pigeon and house sparrow doing particularly well. On many a visit to the New England Aquarium in Boston, I have seen hordes of house sparrows patrolling the sidewalks, looking for food that has either been accidentally dropped or intentionally thrown to them.
House sparrows are social creatures that seem more than willing to live their entire lives within arm’s reach of human beings. They liven up urban centers with their chattering and squabbling, and this is no doubt the very characteristic that made them appealing to the folks who brought them to America in the first place. Sadly, their antics were not limited to urban areas.
House sparrows are a genuine menace out in the country, where they aggressively compete with native species for wild foods and nesting areas. I have a particularly dark place in my heart for house sparrows after they drove a family of bluebirds away from a nest box and killed four of the five chicks inside. So I was not even remotely pleased to see house sparrows show up on my deck. However, there is almost nothing that can be done about a species that has done so spectacularly well in adapting to life on a new continent.
The sexes look quite different from one another, so you’ll have to keep that in mind when trying to identify birds at your own feeders. Adult males have a gray cap on their heads, chocolate-brown swathes of feathers on the sides of the head, and a black mask between the beak and the eyes. Males also have a black bib on the throat. These markings make them very difficult to confuse with any other species.
Female house sparrows and young-of-the-year birds have a very different appearance. These birds are quite pale with only a light tan eyestripe across a beige head and face. The breast feathers are also free of any stripes, bars or streaks. They have the same basic markings on the back and wings, but they look different enough to possibly be confused as another species. Since house sparrows tend to arrive in groups, however, you will probably see both sexes at the same time, which is useful.
Keep your eyes peeled for house sparrows. If you have bird feeders, make a note of which birds appear. Sparrows tend to feature a lot of brown feathers and I would not be at all surprised if you see sparrows that are not house sparrows. In fact, I’m counting on it. Stay tuned for next week’s column to possibly solve a sparrow mystery in your own backyard.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 21 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts State Parks, and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.