By M. Kathy Raines
Special to the PRESS
“Well, it’s complicated.” That’s one way to describe our checkered relationship with this handsome, ever-present little bird hopping around in our backyards.
At times, Americans have celebrated the house sparrow as a friend and ally, one that devours tree-destroying caterpillars and moths. In fact, in 1851, eight European pairs were invited to Brooklyn, New York, to dine on these insects. The trees revived, people hoorayed, and officials imported more and more batches of sparrows. Chicagoans even set up 170 sparrow houses and perches for them at fountains. Hardy, adaptable, prolific house sparrows spread from coast to coast.
However, when the sparrows—who, when not breeding, eat primarily grain— ransacked and contaminated farmers’ seeds, crops and ripening fruits, Americans’ zeal turned to scorn. Calling them a scourge, even “feathered rats”, they sought ways to annihilate them. In the nineteenth century, some states offered cash for dead house sparrows, sometimes even their eggs. Sparrow extermination societies sprung up, as well as shooting contests.
The spunky, highly adaptable house sparrow (Passer domesticus), also called English sparrow, likely developed in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago, where it spread throughout Europe, much of Asia and Northern Africa. Now it lives worldwide, except in cold locales like Alaska and northern Canada.
This sparrow thrives where human beings are present, nesting in trees and natural cavities, but also along eaves, roofs, light posts and nesting boxes. Known as a commensal (from Latin “sharing a table”) species, its success is tied to our own. Cherishing our scraps, house sparrows rarely live far from us.
These constant human companions have long stirred controversy. In past centuries, some European authorities demanded that landowners kill sparrows (along with other creatures considered pests), charging stiff penalties for failure to deliver a quota of sparrow heads as proof.
The pre-automobile age was indeed a heyday for house sparrows, who ate from our nation’s ample farmland and followed horses, eating undigested grain in their dung. But with the demise of horse-drawn vehicles and increasing urbanization, sparrow populations declined.
Most Americans seem to have reached a truce with house sparrows. It’s hard to despise the little fellows, who never asked to come here. And, emotionally and culturally, the very word “sparrow”—so common in songs, including hymns, and Bible verses—evokes images of sweet humility, as in the line from a 1904 Gospel hymn: “His eye is on the sparrow/And I know He watches me.” Still, bird-lovers are understandably brokenhearted to see aggressive sparrows evict bluebirds or purple martins from nest boxes, sometimes maiming them and/or destroying eggs or nestlings.
Humans unwittingly supply much of a house sparrow’s food: seeds at feeders or chicken coops and scraps from restaurants and parking lots. During breeding season, the house sparrow, like other songbirds, eats and feeds nestlings mainly protein, including insects, small frogs, mollusks and crustaceans. Like our great-tailed grackles, it may follow lawnmowers to eat churned out invertebrates.
Contributing to their success, house sparrows breed prolifically—in Texas, generally, from March through September—often producing several broods a year. The male, in full breeding plumage, has a stark black bib whose size advertises good health to both potential mates and rivals. As early as February, a male may select a nest and begin its construction, with which a female mate soon assists. Sparrows line their messy nests with grasses and feathers, among other items. Both males and females brood, defend nests and raise chicks.
House sparrows mainly hop but can walk and, if essential, swim. Scooping out little hollows—which they defend— sparrows shower themselves with dust, probably to remove parasites and excess oils.
Because of their proximity to humans, house sparrows have been extensively studied, partly to test evolutionary theories. Though not threatened, sparrow populations have declined, especially in some parts of Europe. In wintertime here, a tree full of chirping sparrows—as well as other songbirds—may become oddly silent when a migratory Cooper’s or sharp-shinned hawk, who specializes in small birds like sparrows, lurks along a branch. The oldest house sparrow, both banded and later found in Texas, was 15 years and 9 months old.