Out of control

October 19, 2013 • 1:43 pm

Many people who feed wild birds have troubles with squirrels stealing bird food. My problem is the opposite: I’m feeding squirrels and their food has suddenly attracted birds, probably because winter’s coming on and food is scarcer.  The other day I found these house sparrows nomming my squirrel food (there was a gorgeous male cardinal, too, but I didn’t have my camera). This species, Passer domesticus, was named by Linnaeus, and was of course introduced to the U.S., having been released in New York in 1852.

They are pretty, though, aren’t they? They are the tabby cats of birds.

Sparrows

Now, of course, I must feed these guys as well, so I have bought bird food.  Between that, the sunflower seeds, peanuts, squirrel food, and now acorns (collected from nearby oaks), I have quite a collection of animal fudz.

Buffet

I love the French translation of “Wild Bird Seed Mix” on the bag: “Mélange de Grains Pour Oiseaux Sauvages“.  It’s much cooler to think of bird seed as a melange of grains for savage oiseaux.

Now all the animals have quite a buffet on my lab windowsill (water dish to right):

Windowsill

I hope raptors don’t find this place and start picking off birds and squirrels.

Someone made a petulant comment a while back asking why I bother feeding animals who will only convert that food into more squirrels and birds, swelling the population and exacerbating the problem.  My answer is that the animals are hungry and suffer from lack of food.  Would you withhold food from the children of impoverished nations because there are too many people there anyway?

143 thoughts on “Out of control”

      2. Yea, verily, stop feeding Masters of the Universe who view other flesh-and-blood human beings as merely and solely human “resources” and “capital.”

        “It’s much cooler to think of bird seed as a melange of grains for savage oiseaux.”

        It’s not merely “cool,” it’s “groovy.” Ditto with, e.g., “Rio Grande” and “Rio De Janeiro,” as compared with “Big Rivur” and “Jan-yew-wary Rivur” (as delivered in the thick accent once greately predominating in my “stompin’ grounds” east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon Line).

  3. You can take care of both with one mix. Buying such small quantities will bankrupt you. Buy 50 lb bags of wild bird seed, and add a fairly large amount of high oil sunflower seeds (feed grade, not human). To take care of the squirrels, add dried corn. The birds wont eat it, the squirrels love it and will leave the sunflower seeds alone. All the critters with feathers will be grateful, and you won’t have squirrels raiding the birds stash. Use a feeder for the seed if possible to prevent scattering.

    1. It’s also vital to ensure that any seed or other bird feed bought in bulk is correctly stored. If mould takes hold, which may not necessarily be apparent visually, it is lethal to birds. The danger of mould is even greater with some bird feeders, as larger quantities of feed will take longer for birds to consume, and the longer the feed is exposed to the elements, the greater the risk of mould infestation.

      For this reason, personally, I favour covered bird tables over feeders. I have also found that feeders result in far more seed ending up on the ground than tables do, which attracts the birds and makes them very much more vulnerable to cats. It makes little difference if you always keep your cat/s indoors, as your neighbours might not.

  5. “My answer is that the animals are hungry and suffer from lack of food. Would you withhold food from the children of impoverished nations because there are too many people there anyway?”

    Excellent answer.

    I too feed birds in the winter using different kinds of bird feeds – a mélange de graines pour oiseaux sauvages which caters to sparrows and pigeons and such, and sunflower seeds set in balls of suet for tits and other birds which need a lot of fat in their diet. These balls are in nets and I hang them from my window.

  6. exactly, the animals are hungry. we’ve done enough harm to the other creatures we share the planet with. it’s high time we actually try reducing suffering instead of inducing it.

  7. Considering all the damage that humans have done to wildlife, I have a hard time getting upset at the thought of encouraging it.

    If there were a significant concern of infections disease, that might be something different. But there’s not.

    Indeed…I’d almost go so far as to suggest that you might consider doing a bit of windowsill gardening to make it even more friendly to wildlife. Some potted native flowering plants will not only attract pollinators for your viewing pleasure, it’ll help swell their ranks as well.

    Cheers,

    b&

      1. Or, better still, cook for yourself. I’m finishing up a quite filling lunch of crackers, Brie, and some fresh celery, carrots, and radishes. The whole thing, including a quarter pound of some very good Brie, cost me under $4, maybe even under $3. Dinner’s going to be a fresh salad and a big bowl of pasta with meat sauce, all made from scratch with fresh ingredients bought from Whole Paycheck. I don’t think that one will total $4, either.

        I rather doubt $4 will get you in the door at many buffets, and I’m certainly eating all I can eat.

        Quite simply, if you can afford to eat at a restaurant, even a fast food joint, you can afford to eat very high on the hog, indeed! So why pay so much money to eat shit when you can eat real, good, honest, delicious, healthy food for so much less money?

        Cheers,

        b&

  8. I find humor in the buffet or as I call it “hog bar” style layout. Here in ‘bama, buffet madness has taken over. Along with morbid obesity.

    1. Fortunately, Jerry’s customers are getting a wee bit more exercise than their primate cousins in Alabama…and Jerry also isn’t lacing the food with toxic and addictive quantities of refined sweeteners….

      Still, you’re right. I think it’s pretty safe to suggest that no natural bounty such as what Jerry is offering would be nearly so neatly arranged. I wonder if that fact even registers on the consciousnesses (such as they are) of the diners?

      b&

  9. I was curious about the introduction of this species to the US in the 1800s. I learned their were multiple individuals and groups that went to considerable trouble to release large numbers of sparrows and other species from Europe and England. The rest was history, as we say.

    2. Not just sparrows. The American Acclimatization Society, in particular, was dedicated to introducing European flora and fauna to the US.

      One of AAS’s cahairmen, Eugene Schieffelin, was primarily responsible for introducing not just the European Starling, but every bird species mentioned in Shakepeare’s plays.

  10. It’s quite possible that the raptors will arrive. They’re attracted to a meat buffet the same way the birds and squirrels are attracted to the seeds buffet. Fortunately, they don’t get many, especially if there’s some cover nearby. But that is what happens when you bolster a lower level of the food chain!

    My approach now is to have more native plants in my garden, which attract native insects, whose larvae feed the nestlings of native birds. It takes literally thousands of larvae for a pair of chickadees to fledge one brood!

    2. Raptors have to make a living, too! It isn’t their fault they need other critters to nom on!

  11. About 90% of all birds don’t make it to the ripe old age of 1. Egg predation, nestling predation, loss of nest, loss of parent, bad weather, lack of food, cat (feral and house) predation, crashing into windows, cars, wind turbines and antennas, migration difficulties, and so on.

    Feed ’em all you want. Brighten their day. Their lives are short and brutal enough as it is without humans making it even worse than we already do. Most ‘songbird’ species in the U.S. have declined in numbers by 50-95% over the past 50 years. Humans are in no danger of being overwhelmed by them.

    1. ​​The decline in the population of songbirds has also been dramatic in the UK. This year, the slump seems to be particularly bad, at least here in Oxford.

      At this time of year, I can usually identify half-a-dozen pairs of blackbirds (turdus merula), but this year, none. There were two local males declaring territory back in the spring, but hardly a peep since June. I haven’t heard a wren (troglodytes troglodytes) or robin (erithacus rubecula) all year. In years past, there have been starlings (sturnus vulgaris) lined up, shoulder-to-shoulder, along the ridges of the local houses. This year, it has been easy to count the few individual birds.

      The same has been true for other species that I would expect to see at our bird table, from blue tit (cyanistes caeruleus) to goldcrest (regulus regulus). I find the alarming decline this year very concerning, although it does seem to have led to a marginal increase in butterfly numbers. However, this is scant consolation, and in a healthy environment, birds and butterflies would be abundant.

      1. Thanks for including the scientific names, since our (UK vs. USA) common names vary so drastically.

      2. Well, the entire ecosystem is collapsing. In the ocean, information about the death of coral reefs, essential as the nurseries for much life in the oceans, is easily found, and most recently, see:
        http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=2373

        Equally, on land, lakes and rivers are eutrophied and acidified – and worse, the foundation of much terrestrial life, the forests, are inexorably declining from pollution, see: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/01/29/whispers-from-the-ghosting-trees/

        I’m curious that among the concerns of so many atheists, which I had rather imagined to be science-based, the imminent extinction of life on earth appears to be off the radar as a topic of discussion.

        Why is that? Are atheists actually secret worshipers of technology, which they think will save us?

        That’s a serious question, any answers appreciated.

        1. It’s not that it’s off-topic but that there are already a plethora of other venues in which to have these discussions.

          1. Really? I would appreciate any link to a venue where there is a nexus of atheism and ecosystem collapse/extinction. I haven’t been able to locate any, but perhaps that is my poor search skills. Sites I know of that are cognizant of the imminent threat of extinction are awash in believers in hogwash – zen/spirituality/hopium whereas any atheist sites I know of simply ignore existential threats entirely.

          2. I don’t see why there needs to be a nexus, but if you’ve not found such a venue, why not start one?

            Many of us would like to talk about feminism, environmentalism, libertarianism, vegetarianism, you name it, but that would take us far afield and lead to no small amount of dissension.

            This is the website to talk about atheism and evolution.

          6. OK, to be more specific, this site is particularly concerned with religious interference with the acceptance of evolution. First things first.

            (Thanks, Diana.)

          7. Okay I think I get it. “this site is particularly concerned with religious interference with the acceptance of evolution. First things first.”

            So, cats squabbling with dogs over beds, and new custom-made cowboy boots, and feeding squirrels are relevant…but ecosystem collapse (which sorta has something to do with the interwoven fabric of evolutionary interdependence based on, oh, climatic conditions and clean air) does not. Do I have that right now?

          8. “So, cats squabbling with dogs over beds, and new custom-made cowboy boots, and feeding squirrels are relevant…”

            Don’t know why I still want to help you here, but — I must warn you, you’re seriously violating Da Roolz.

          9. Yep, serious Roolz violation. I suggest you go to some other site instead of trolling here. You will apologize to Diane G. for calling her answer stupid, and, if you do that, you’re still gonna be moderated until you behave yourself.

        2. What on Earth makes you think atheists aren’t concerned about how we’re fucking up the planet, or are optimistic we can do something about it? Those are both frequent themes in the threads here and elsewhere.

          And some of us are doing all we can, as ultimately ineffective as it may be, to stem the tide. I, for example, have my roof covered in solar panels and generate about half again as much electricity as I consume, with the surplus fed back into the grid and thus reducing peak generating demand. And I know I’m not the only one here who’s done things on such a scale, and most of us vote that way where such choices are available.

          What more would you have us do?

          b&

          1. Jeez I wasn’t suggesting you do more or less or anything at all one way or another! I’m just asking a question based on what I’ve seen, or rather not seen. I’m asking for information, not criticizing.

          2. JAQing off, I think it’s called (‘Just Asking Questions’). It’s what trolls do.

        3. I’m curious that among the concerns of so many atheists, which I had rather imagined to be science-based, the imminent extinction of life on earth appears to be off the radar as a topic of discussion.

          It is orthogonal to atheism as such.

          But given that atheists are statistically more educated, active, successful, well being et cetera, I suspect you can find many atheist engaged in secular sites devoted to these subjects.

          As opposed to religionists, atheists aren’t forced to accept belief in certain morals or concerns. What they do, and they likely do a lot, they do because of their humanity. Not in spite of it.

          1. Orthagonal? Okay, all I’m asking for is some links where some/any/prominent/vocal/published atheist(s) talk about near term extinction from ecosystem collapse/pollution/climate change/overpopulation/habitat destruction.

            Please keep in mind that I am an atheist. I simply want to know, where are the athesists who are engaged in the ongoing destruction of the biosphere?

            Again, any links appreciated. So far, all I’ve seen are excuses “that’s not our focus” but “atheists do care”. Okay, show me please??

          2. For one thing, they’re probably right there working beside the religious in common cause, as with many other endeavors.

            What benefit is it to stress divisions in this cause?

          3. Not to mention providing most of the scientific justification for sounding the alarm in the first place…

        4. the imminent extinction of life on earth

          Also, this analysis is fear mongering and a claim in need of reference.

          I don’t think you will find much of _any_ site discussing such inanities. More likely people discuss actual problems, which we have many examples of.

          1. Wait, are you a climate denier? Cause, last time CO2 was at this level, sea level was about 200 feet higher. And alligators were crawling around palm trees in the Arctic Circle. Do evolutionists think we’ll adapt to that, all 7 billion people on earth?

          2. How do you connect AGW to “the imminent extinction of life on earth”. Oh wait, you don’t.

            FWIW, I predicted -09 from the statistical properties of the AGW signal that IPCC -14 (now -13) would claim AGW with 3 sigma confidence as a 50 % bet. I won that bet.

          3. Oh, yes, I do. Aside from run-away global warming which is already baked in the cake and will evenutally eliminate large mammalian life just from temperature, before then, people are going to do what they always do when resources become scarce – they are going to fight. And there are a lot of nuclear weapons lying around.

          4. I forgot to add the standard observations here:

            – Life has existed for 4 billion years, the majority of the run of the planet it can get with only ~ 1.5 billion years of biosphere lifetime left. Despite late bombardments, the Great Oxidation Event, supernovas, snowball periods, et cetera.

            Life is a plague on the planet and simply can’t be expected to go extinct.

            – The greatest threats to life has always been life, the greatest polluters of Earth has always been life.

            E.g. the greatest extinction event, caused by enormous pollution of the extreme poison oxygen, was caused by the cyanobacteria clade. It changed the biosphere for ever after 100’s of millions of years. Nothing a single species can do will repeat that.

            I’ll add that the KPg mass extinction event was sourced by calciferous and sulfurous sediments that earlier life had laid down. And now I hear that perhaps the Cretaceous mass extinction was also caused by pollution, releasing methane clathrates.

            I’m not saying that our species doesn’t have an effect. I’m saying that it should neither be unexpected nor overly dramatized.

        5. You’re very much mistaken. The future of our planet is very much on our minds. After all, we’re not deluded that there’s some garden of Eden waiting for us after we croak. This is IT!

          I do my bit to reduce my carbon footprint and my impact on the environment. It seems to me that those awash in wealth from oil investments and the like are the ones who avoid this topic like the plague.

          2. Good job.

            I’m a bit embarrassed, now. It’s obvious we just have a garden-variety internet troll on our hands. And all the hallmarks were so blatant!

            Guess we get spoiled here at WEIT with the generally civilized tone.

            Let’s stop feeding it.

          4. “Like Maru, I’m doing my best, but I can’t see every comment at every moment.”

            We’ve got your back! 😀

          5. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s good to give the benefit of the doubt. These trolls all seem to have the same MO: they seem mild at first then quickly become rude.

          9. My dog would shake all over trying to control herself. She is a high “stim” dog who I suspect would be great at any rescue work because of this. I have taught her to stay and wait before greeting people and it’s so much work for her that she shakes all over trying to control herself. She badly wants to kiss the person all over but she is over 100 pounds so she is overwhelming.

          10. Sounds like a fun girl. I’ve found that, a lot of the time, you can preempt the jumping if you get down to the dog’s level. A proper greeting with nose-to-nose sniffing and a back rub seems to satisfy most dogs….

            b&

          11. The rule with my dog is no looking at her or patting if she is not sitting properly and if she gets up while you are patting her, you have to stop so she learns that if you get hyper, you don’t get pats. I run a tight ship. 🙂

          14. I guess we all have to be more vigilant. We’re so darn nice!

            I was suspicious about his/her agenda… I thought s/he might have been trying to do some self-promoting of other sites.

          15. “I was suspicious about his/her agenda… I thought s/he might have been trying to do some self-promoting of other sites.”

            One does notice that sort of thing around here from time to time, doesn’t one? 😉

        6. You will find very, very few global warming / climate change doubters or deniers in the atheist community, or on this blog. The overwhelming majority of people who deny the effect of humankind on the Earth’s environment reside in the god-fearing, morality-enforcing, right-wing religious cabal.

          They have to, because they fear a fall in their incomes and share prices more than they fear their god.

  12. Jerry – get the shelled peanuts (from pet supply), otherwise you’ll have the empty shells everywhere.

    1. It’s not just North Africa. Although the killing of songbirds is illegal in the EU, the slaughter continues each year in France, Italy, Malta, Turkey and Greece. The authorities either don’t have the manpower or willingness to step in, so the only factor that reduces the annual ‘harvest’ is the general decline in bird populations.

      1. I read the article some time ago – but I believe it discusses that hunting songbirds is popular in Europe, particularly among Italians, who travel to eastern EU countries where regulations are not as strict.

    2. Well, some of these spp are not migratory, and in some areas (esp. rural ones) supporting the invasives (which after a while just have to become “newer natives”, it seems to me) does negatively affect the traditional native fauna.

      In urban areas, though, I’m not seeing a lot of competition for, say, the sparrow or the pigeon niches, and those spp even support the recovery of peregrines. So I think the debate is not cut and dried.

  14. I thrill to the Cooper’s Hawk sightings my feeders result in, however hard it is to see a particular songbird picked off…one of the few times one has the privilege of watching birds of prey in action, up close and personal.

    One has to take the long look, how important the predators are to diversity, etc. And of course, they have to eat too. 🙂

    1. If the birds around my feeders see a hawk (which I never notice before them), they immediately freeze and they can stay totally frozen for ages. It is a sight to see the downey woodpecker frozen and skinny on the stem of the feeder for his fat.

      1. I notice two strategies–the flee-ers and the freezers. It’s the former who usually get chased. And sometimes caught.

        1. Yeah, I notice doves tend to get caught a lot. No wonder they appear to have a perpetual look of shock on their faces. 🙂

          1. Doves are definitely a favorite prey…as are cardinals. Neither species seems to hurt for numbers.

            I have some vids of a Cooper’s eating a Cardinal. Once you’re in the right frame of mind they’re fascinating.

          2. Yes, they’re beautiful birds and nervy too. A couple of them reconnoiter our neighbourhood and our yard regularly, to pick off birds, mostly doves under the feeders. They’re so bold-faced, they’ll even alight on our fence to pluck and tear! One even landed on our patio, grabbing a dove from under the patio table! It sat there for a while too. We do have to watch out for our kitteh’s well-being, when she’s on her walkabout.

  15. Conventional wisdom in the Ornithological world is that feeders should be put close to vegetation so visitors to the feeder can take cover from predators. My feeders are no more than 5 feet from dense foliage.

    1. Dogs never seem to learn about — skunks, porcupines, bears or rattlesnakes. Sigh. They sometimes mix it up with racoons, too. Not a good idea.

  17. I figure if you like watching the animals, then feeding them is a fair trade — they get food, you get the pleasure of seeing wildlife.

  18. I feed all my critters with black oil sunflower seeds. I get the ginormous 50 pound bags (~22 kg). The squirrels, chipmunks, birds, skunks, racoons, possums all like them & they must be pretty good because they come around even in the summer when there is a lot of woods they can get food from as well. I haven’t seen the squirrels much & I had to spend $100 after my air intake was clogged with leaves & stuff so I’m suspecting one of the resident chipmunks and I am afraid it may have happened again after only a couple of weeks! They are lucky they are cute! Other people might put out traps.

    You must’ve bought seeds they also sell in Quebec or something to have French on it….I never see French & English on labels in the US normally.

    1. I see them (labels in French & English) all the time here in Michigan.

      Much cheaper than investing in separate packaging, I imagine.

          1. I’m too lazy to look it up but I doubt it with NAFTA. I think it is just cheaper to make bilingual packaging for all markets if you happen also to be selling in Canada.

  19. I started 15 years ago with 1 bird feeder to entertain the cats during the day, but the story is the same. Now I have 8 bird feeders and 1 squirrel feeder, not to mention the peanuts I strew on the ground every morning. If I could just get rid of those darn pigeons.

  20. The one sparrow closest to the window clearly didn’t want his identity known & blurred his face for the photo. 🙂

  21. It’s a gray area.

    Feeding animals is considered problematic over here.

    Generally it concentrates animals to a specific locale, which gives pollution, noise and neighbor disturbances. [I’m citing communal advice here.] It is considered inadvisable to do what Jerry does, because of the latter. It is the building owner who decides, but in case of complaints this can be overruled – especially if it breaks building codes on noise levels.

    Feeding is not necessary. E.g. populations finds feed.

    But it promotes diversity (at least in birds), so it is encouraged when not a problem. And it doesn’t seem to spread animal infections (i.e. salmonella). But I note that the question is still open due to lack of research, so yet another area for biologists to conquer.
    [ http://www.naturochtradgard.se/naturtradgard_fagelmatning.html ]

    My answer is that the animals are hungry and suffer from lack of food. Would you withhold food from the children of impoverished nations because there are too many people there anyway?

    See above, it isn’t comparable.

  22. Many decades ago (in the 1950’s) I was at a hamburger restaurant with my dad. He noticed that the waitress was picking her nose. So when she asked for his order he said – “I’ll have a hard-boiled egg and a bottle of Coke. I figure you can’t stick your fingers in that.” And that’s the solution for your window feeder. Feed the squirrels black walnuts and Brazil nuts, and the birds will be stopped. They can’t stick their little beaks in that.

    1. Crows are pretty good at getting nuts open. If they can’t break it by dropping it on a hard surface like a car’s hood, they wait for the car to drive over it.

  23. I remember when sparrows were common in London, I can’t remember the last time I saw one. I used to love watching them buzz around, very busy birds.

    1. Life is not easy for sparrows in urban areas. Loss of habitat, and even if they find a good place to build their nest, they still need insects to feed their young. Normaly they eat grains, but their young need high protein food.
      I too like watching sparrows, but it has become rare indeed.

  25. I’m with you, Jerry Coyne. However, as we all know all too well, there are many who DO indeed advocate withholding food from children and their parents who are impoverished — in the U.S.A. as well as around the world. They even talk about “survival of the fittest” as their excuse for doing so. “Social Darwinism” is still around – especially among the pious.

    1. Lest anybody think owleyes101 is exaggerating or making this up…Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council told the Christian Post in interview a few weeks ago that there was “nothing more Christian” than “not locking people into a permanent dependency on government handouts, but making sure they are participants in their own upliftment and empowerment so that they in fact through the dignity of work and can break from the plantation of big government,” which is why he’s opposed to food stamps.

      Hard to get more evil than taking away a starving family’s food stamps. I do agree that it’s a very Christian thing to do, though.

      b&

  26. Lol – my response to the petulant person: the population of prey species controls the population of predator species and predators are pretty cool.

    Keeping the restaurant open will attract predators. Personally, I think it’s cool. One of my favourite things to do when I fed birds at my childhood home was to wait till after dark and flick my floodlights in the backyard on. It wasn’t unusual to see a Barred Owl perched on top of the feeder hanger watching for mice underneath that came to eat spilt seed.

    A bit of advice – put adhesive raptor sillouettes on your windows (on the outside) to ward off bird strikes. Particularly from raptors who sometimes pursue prey with reckless abandon.

  27. > Would you withhold food from the children of impoverished
    > nations because there are too many people there anyway?

    A humane proposal… that might do some good;
    include gross of condoms with each pack of food.

    imo

    1. There might not be anything that we could do for our biosphere that would have more of a positive impact than to have free and anonymous birth control dispensing machines at every major street intersection in every city of every country. We could very comfortably go for centuries with birth rates well below replacement levels and increase the overall standard of living at the same time. Global population in the range of a half a billion is probably ideal.

      As it is, I very much doubt that current population growth will last much longer. Neither the environment nor the oil wells have much left to give. I may well live to see a human population crash…or, at least, the beginnings of one….

      Cheers,

      b&

      1. Great reply. Relieve suffering when ever possible but fix the problems that cause it – population control being one. Invasive species are not exactly comparable to children.

        1. Actually, humans are far and away the most invasive species the Earth has seen in billions of years. We can, should, and must control our population. If we have any clue — which we might well not — we’ll do so humanely through birth control and elevated low-impact standards of living for those already born. If not, our population eventually will be controlled, through resource exhaustion and pollution, and the collapse won’t be something anybody will want to witness or experience…exactly like any other species undergoing exponential population growth, from bacteria in a petri dish to ungulates “freed” from predation.

          b&

          1. As Agent Smith said,

            Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.

          2. “If not, our population eventually will be controlled, through resource exhaustion and pollution,”

            My money’s on pandemic disease…

    1. I dunno. Depends on the individuals in question. I’d pick Big Bird over Mitt Romney any day of the week, for example. And I’d happily trade the entire Congressional Tea Party Caucus for just a handful more condors.

      b&

  30. Sorry about (our) Passer domesticus which I suppose was responsible for the extintion of your Ectopistes migratorius.

  31. treasure the sparrows. In their native world, their numbers are falling. I grew up in Melbourne which has sparrows – lots of ’em. I now live in Perth which marshalls the military if one sparrow is spotted. Treasure them 🙂 & yay on you for feeding them!

    1. I’ll look after them for you. We have all sorts here: song sparrows, english sparrows, tree sparrows….

    2. They are invasive exotics in the US. They kill (destroy nests and eggs) and displace natives such as bluebirds, etc.

      1. here they worry about seed. But we have so many invasive species, including parrots that displace all teh native parrots. It’s the same problem around the world

  32. I am a big fan of dinosaurs and squirrels (very difficult word for the French to pronounce). You keep right on. I put chunks of fat from a ham on a string in a tree. The birds love it.

  33. Those “house sparrows” are exotics and are actually very destructive of native bird species. In my back yard (and all over N America) they compete aggressively with other cavity nesters such as bluebirds and tree swallows and usually beat them.

    We have nesting bluebirds in our backyard almost every year now. A few years ago, I witnessed one of these little shites (“house sparrows”) destroying a bluebird nest with eggs in it. Since them, I’ve done my patrol every summer with my air rifle. I’ve pegged about 20 of these little bastards (not bad shooting, from 60 feet away, I’ve probably got about a 0.200 average) and the bluebirds and tree swallows have remained relatively unmolested since. They (the bluebirds) have raised at least one (sometimes two) broods each summer for 3 or 4 summers. Often, after they are done, a house wren moves into the birdhouse. I love the ratchety, raucous call of the little wren.

    The “house sparrows” seem to have some cultural learning. After the first 3 years of carnage, they pretty much avoid our yard (and they are in the neighbors’ yards — I see and hear them.)

    These critters are wily. I must shoot from a crack in the window (opened VERY quietly and stealthily). If they see me at all, they bolt. Now, as I said, they pretty much just avoid our yard.

    You may find this shooting disturbing. It’s not exactly my favorite activity. But, given that these things are exotics and squeeze out the natives, I have no problem with it. I don’t shoot unless I positively ID the bird. This means I don’t shoot females, since I can’t be sure of them (relative to fox sparrows, song sparrows, various other LBBs in the neighborhood.)

    1. House Sparrows are in the Old World Weaver family and not a sparrow at all. they mostly hang out and breed in urban places and especially like shopping centers.
      An exotic that is really aggressive and a pest is the European Starling. They are very present in their multitudes in Ag areas. They are a serious threat to domestic songbirds. They are extraordinary to watch around sunset in huge flocks called murmurations.

      1. “House Sparrows are in the Old World Weaver family and not a sparrow at all.”

        Well aware of this: Hence the scare quotes. A bee-eater specifically, I believe.

        Agreed on the starlings. I’d get them too if they were present in our area. I rarely see them or hear them.

        Starlings, in gross, may be more harmful to songbirds, generally. However, the “house sparrow” is an agressive competitor against songbirds in our area (and many others). I give them no sympathy or quarter.

        1. Jerry,
          Check out ‘Sibley Guide to Bird Life an Behavior’, P562-564 for a treatise on Old World Sparrows. Everything you never wanted to know about “English Sparrows”.

          1. I’m pretty sure Jerry’s aware of the invasive background of this species.

            House Sparrows are here to stay. IMO, there are habitats where they need to be managed (where they impact bluebird nesting, for instance) and those where they have pretty much adapted and settled in, and where there was really no previous competition–urban areas. Where they can be a delight to watch.

          2. I have nesting boxes for bluebirds, who BTW are picky & take so long deciding if they like the next box, that other birds often take it over before they make up their mind. These birds would suck at buying real-estate. The birds that typically compete with them for nests are tree swallows. The sparrows don’t nest where they do or compete for food in the same way.

          3. That was my experience with nest boxes, too (mostly Tree Swallow competition). (I let the boxes deteriorate over the years and now the bluebirds are doing fine in all the dead snags in the fencerows–more each year.)

            But House Sparrows have definitely moved in on bluebird boxes in many places. (Of course, Starlings, also hole nesters, will do so too if the entrance hole gets too big!)

        1. Yeah, it’s really North American sparrows that aren’t really sparrows. 😀 The Old World bunting family, I believe.

        2. The “House/English Sparrow” have never been a sparrow. They’ve always been a Weaver. Family Ploceidae.
          Again check out Sibley Pps 562-564
          And read up on parallel evolution.

          1. According to Cornell’s Birds of North America they’re in the Passeridae.

            Passer domesticus

            Order
            PASSERIFORMES
            – Family
            PASSERIDAE

          4. Because that volume is the one bird book I can’t find right now (grr) I’ve been trying to find what you refer to online. No success yet, but I did discover this interesting blog entry of Sibley’s,

            http://www.sibleyguides.com/2008/02/house-sparrow-new-for-north-america/

            And this interesting reply he made to a comment to that post:

            Thanks for the comments. Yes, House Sparrows are amazing birds, and one of the few species that really bridges the gap between the human world and the natural world. I’ve seen them in lots of indoor habitats like supermarkets, mall food courts, airport terminals, etc. Unfortunately that makes them “common” (as in “vulgar”) and on top of that they have the bad habit of outcompeting some native cavity-nesters for homes, so they earn a bad reputation.

            It is true that they are not protected by federal laws – because they are not native. At some level that distinction seems unfair to me. They’ve been here for over a hundred years, and the habitat they occupy is almost entirely non-native (farms, feedlots, city parks, etc), so what do we expect?

            I had no idea he and I were so in tune! 😀

          5. I am not going to enter into a polemic with you, save to say that every reference I have found about the House Sparrow gives it its Latin name as being Passer Domesticus and calling it a sparrow. I googled both in English and French.

          6. One shouldn’t get too hung up on the English names for birds, which are not exacting. Even the official scientific binomial names change all the time. In 1758 Carl Linnaeus named the widespread House Sparrow Fringilla domestica, but it was later kicked out of that genus into the Passer genus.

            The “Clement’s List,” widely used in the U.S. birding community, but which is NOT the only authority, records House Sparrow in Passeridae, commonly known as “Old World Sparrows,” a family which currently has 38 species, 25 of which are called “sparrow.”

            The large group of birds we in America know as “sparrows” are in the Emberizidae family of “Buntings, Sparrows, Seedeaters and Allies.” It currently has (about) 329 species, not all of which are called “Sparrow.”

            The “weavers” are in a different family, Ploceidae. Most live in Africa, others in Asia.

            Confusion is easy. Additionally:
            1. Flycatchers – 2 separate families: Tyrant Flycatchers in the New World; Old World Flycatchers. There is also a Silky-Flycatcher family and a Monarch Flycatcher family.
            2. Warblers – 2 separate families: Old World Warblers; New World Warblers.
            3. Orioles: Old World Orioles; Orioles in America are in Icteridae, the blackbird family.
            4. Vultures – Old World vultures are in the same family as hawks, eagles & kites. New World Vultures are in a different family and are probably more closely related to storks than to hawks.
            5. Falcons were recently determined to be more closely related to Passerines (Passeriformes) – aka ‘songbirds,’ than to Hawks.
            6. And so on.

            Avian taxonomy is in a huge state of flux, largely but not entirely due to advances in DNA analysis.

  34. I live in North Fort Myers, Florida and our local pair of bald eagles (Ozzie and Harriet)have recently returned. Last year, they raised a son and daughter, Honor and Hope. There’s a web cam at the nest if anyone would like to see them. Everyone’s hoping for more healthy eaglets.

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