THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090544
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 55 lines
Any more, you don't see many English sparrows - or house sparrows, as they are called now.
Used to be they were the commonest of birds.
Oh, I don't mean they went around cussing and carrying on.
They were just the most prevalent species, often crowding out native birds from their haunts.
From a few house sparrows introduced from England into New York's Central Park in 1850 stems the entire North American population.
They are a noisy, drab lot. The male has a black throat, white cheeks, chestnut nape, and gray crown and rump. The female is streaked dull brown.
Many bird watchers dismiss them, along with starlings and pigeons, as ``trash'' birds - a term that doesn't comply with my egalitarian outlook.
Missing them the other morning, I checked with ornithologists David Hughes and Bob Ake as to why the sparrows' numbers are declining.
(Hughes defines an ornithologist as one whose profession centers on birds. I see him or her as one who knows more of all the birds than do the birds, an apt definition for Hughes and Ake.)
Hughes recalled the theory that house sparrows flourished when we relied on horses and mules to get about. Sparrows dwelled in niches of barns and stables, where straw was at hand for nests. They also picked seeds from horses' droppings.
It could be, he said, that the increasing numbers of house finches, arriving in the late 1970s, has displaced the sparrows.
Ake said he doesn't see house sparrows nearly as often as formerly, and their decrease may have something to do with today's building practices. Then, too, starlings may have had a depressing impact on house sparrows.
Helen Irving hasn't seen a house sparrow lately, and we agreed that change, even the diminishing of a species regarded formerly as a pest, is troubling. It just oughtn't to happen. Things ought to stay the same, confound it!
For Dave Addis, foremost among my 34 mentors, let me conclude with a reminder of the fall sale of bird seed. Make the check payable to the Cape Henry Audubon Society and send it to David Clark, 5715 Carillo Ave., Norfolk 23508. Oct. 19 is the deadline.
Pick up orders Oct. 26, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Carey's Farmers Market, 5651 Virginia Beach Blvd., Norfolk 23502.
Here are varieties of seeds and prices: black oil sunflower seeds, 25 lbs., $11.50; 50 lbs., $19.50.
Striped sunflower, 25 lbs., $13.50.
Gourmet wild bird mix, 25 lbs, $11.50; 50 lbs, $18.50.
Niger thistle seed, 5 lbs., $6; suet cake, $2.
The birds will bless you and color your days. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration
Lately, watchers have seen fewer house sparrows, both males, left,
and females. by CNB