Subject: Sparrows Eating Flower Petals
Date: Mar 24 13:45:13 1999
From: Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney - festuca at olywa.net


Hi folks,

Greg Toffic asked:

"I don't recollect ever having seen sparrows feeding on blossoms.
Maybe I'm just a too much of a birder and too little of a bird watcher.
Has anyone noticed this feeding behavior with sparrows? If so, is it
seen in Zonotrichia only?"

A good question, and one that Tom Foote posed on his "Bird Talk"
program tonight, on KAOS Radio in Olympia.

Well, once again, I pored into my copy of Bent's Manual. His "Life
Histories of North American Cardinals, Grosbeaks, Buntings, Towhees,
Finches, Sparrows, and Allies" (Smithsonian, 1968) states for the
golden-crowned:

"On its California wintering grounds the golden-crowned sparrow
subsists almost entirely on vegetable matter. Foster E. Beal (1910)
reports: 'For the determination of its food 184 stomachs were avail-
able, taken from October to April, inclusive. The animal food amounts
to 0.9 percent, vegetable to 99.1.

"' * * * It is evident that the golden-crown does not search for insects,
and takes only those that come in its way. * * * '

"'Remains of buds and flowers were found in stomachs taken in every
month of the bird's stay in the State, except October and November,
when buds are very small. They were found in 56 stomachs; the
average for the season is 29.5 percent, and in March it rises to
nearly 78 percent.

"Their fondness for buds and flowers does not make them welcome
in the garden. They take a heavy toll of annuals, especially in Cali-
fornia where many are planted in the autumn. They are particularly
hard on ranunculus, stocks, primulas, pansies, and even eat such
bitter leaves as those of calendulas. In the fall they do not hesitate to
eat chrysanthemum flowers, and they also take buds of ornamental
fruit trees and wistaria. They sometimes make serious inroads in
truck gardens in the path of their spring migration...."

The same volume notes that the food of the Pacific coast races of the
white-crowned sparrow includes the statement: "White-crowned
sparrows also eat fresh blossoms and leaves.... Fortunately for vege-
table growers, the large winter flocks that forage over the farm lands
in California's inland valleys leave for the north in April."

Harris' Sparrows "...feed on poison ivy berries and elm blossoms, as
well as weed seeds. We also noted this at Stillwater, and found that
when the Chinese elm was in bud and bloom in late February, the
birds spent considerable time in these trees."

Bent does not note Song Sparrow as being a blossom-feeder, but
I have seen them picking at the "mouse chickweed" (Cerastium sp.)
and at the cress (Cardamine sp.) that is blooming now. Altho' not
a sparrow, I watched house finches feeding on cherry blossoms
in our back yard last year.

Yeah, Greg, we could all do with a little more 'bird-watching'. We
would probably learn a lot (and not have to read it out of books...like
I had to...) :-)

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net