House Sparrows

Apparently my yard is ideal House Sparrow breeding ground. Well, given how prolific they are in general and how adaptable, I'm not sure that's any great distinction, but it's certainly no less true. On the eaves of my front porch there is a battered old bird house, which came with the house when we bought it. The former owners said the bird house was occupied every year, but they didn't know what kind of birds used it. Early this spring, I found out it was a pair of House Sparrows. And now months later, they're still using it.

So far, I've seen them hatch out three clutches of eggs. The last clutch fledged a few days ago, and I happened to step out onto the porch just as one of the babies was contemplating a maiden flight. I tried to be quiet and unobtrusive, but those words are not in the vocabulary of my four year old daughter. The sparrow ended up leaping from the little landing pad on the birdhouse and taking wobblingly to the air, aiming towards the dogwood tree. It made it to the tree, and after crashing through the leaves, it did manage to land. I tried not to laugh, and I was glad it looked like it would be okay.

Not too long after that, I started hearing the peeping sound I've come to realize means either 1) chicks are hungry or 2) mating season is back. The sound that the female bird makes during the courtship rituals is, to my human ears, very much like that of the chicks in the nest, to the point that if I hadn't known for sure the chicks had fledged, I'd have had to go look to see whether it was feeding or mating activity. The sparrows will mate off and on, all over my porch and gutters, for a couple of days, and then start their fourth clutch. I'm assuming it's the same pair, as they seem to be marginally territorial about their nest and the immediate environs, and I've seen them fight off other birds interested in the nest.

Next spring, I will be studying the one house we have for dimensions and construction, and putting up more around the yard, probably on large poles or up in the dogwood and cedar trees. The only difference I want to be sure to make is the ability to clean out the house, as this one doesn't have any way to open it. We have a whole flock of the little critters, so I'm hoping to encourage more than one pair to mate and hang out where I can watch. I hadn't realized how many we really had living on the property or nearby until a couple of days ago when my husband directed my attention to the patch of dirt he'd shoveled out of the front yard and spread over a patch of ground we're preparing to turn into a berry patch. There, on the dried-out dirt, dozens of little House Sparrows were taking very vigorous and chatty dust baths. This morning I peeked out the living room windows and the entire flock was at it again, having a party in the dust.