Subject: [Tweeters] House Sparrow
Date: Mar 27 11:34:00 2010
From: David Hutchinson - flora.fauna at live.com



I was personally sorry to read that this little introduced bird might meet with disfavour. After all we cannot all be politically correct, be handsome, dashing and dine mostly on alien pigeons, like the Peregrine Falcon. What stirred me was that it was one of the first birds I ever studied. Being an 11 yr.old boy in a big old house in London, limited by the range of my bicycle, there were not often opportunities to study "wild birds". Instead I crawled around in the attic, visiting the nest sites of the House Sparrow, the Rock Dove and the Starling. This lead to my first ever bird photograph, taken with flash I might add, of a Common Swift on two eggs, nesting in a cranny above my bedroom window.

For all its possible faults, the HOSP is rather interesting and has been the source of much study by grown-up schoolchildren in the USA. It is sometimes a co-operative breeder, it is rarely parasitised by the dreaded cowbird and has an interesting nest. While often it makes a cup, or just crams its nest space with dried grass, it also makes those globular nests like those of other Weaver Finches, dangling like Xmas tree ornaments on trees in East Africa. The globular nest is usually built inside a building or structure, but is apparently also constructed outdoors in trees. Try as I might I could not seem to find this al fresco nest, but after many years I saw one in a small street tree by the Pike Street Market.

Introduced and alien species, it is true, can stir up the blood. As a restoration volunteer in Discovery Park, Scots Broom was a target of annoyance.But now I have achieved peace with Cytisus scoparius, recognising that it does well in distrubed and poor soils, making its own nitrogen. It also provides cover for nesting and feeding of many small birds and mammals.

--
David Hutchinson, Owner
Flora & Fauna: Nature Books
Discovery Gardens: Native Plants
3212 W.Government Way
Seattle,WA.98199
http://www.ffbooks.net/
206-623-4727



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