The World's Most Successful Bird

 

Female House Sparrow
Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Mostly we pay no attention to House Sparrows. Why should we? They’re all over the place, common as dirt; songbirds with not much of a song (just “cheep-cheep-cheep”); rather dull colours, not like cardinals or blue jays.

In truth, although the females are rather nondescript “LBBs” (little brown birds), from close up the males are quite striking.

Male House Sparrow
Photo: Simon Shapiro

 

Looks aside, they’re pretty interesting birds.

They have the distinction of being the most ubiquitous bird in the world. They’re not native to North America. They were introduced into New York from Britain, though they're not really native to Britain either. The first fossil record of house sparrows is 10,000 to 20,000 years ago in Israel. The introduction into New York is documented. Depending on what document, 100, or perhaps 16, birds were introduced in 1840, or perhaps 1851. There’s more agreement that the birds were introduced to help control insect pests. And it’s clear that within fifty years they had spread throughout North America – wherever people lived – were damaging crops and were widely considered to be a pest. And they’ve done that on every continent. They are literally to be found wherever people live.

They like to live very close to people. They take their name “house sparrow” quite seriously. They love to nest in crevices of buildings, like eaves or dryer vents. They will happily fly into large indoor areas, especially if there’s food to be had. As for food, they’re not picky. They eat seeds, nuts, fruit. They happily forage for not-fully-digested seeds in horse or cattle dung. And, particularly to feed their young, they also target insects. 

Beware of What you Wish for.

 In 1958 in China, Mao declared war on tree sparrows, a close relative of the house sparrow. The birds were thought to be eating a substantial portion of China’s crops. Sparrows were declared to be one of four national pests and people were encouraged to eliminate them. Hundreds of millions were killed. The insects that they would have eaten helped cause the crop failure that killed tens of millions of people.

House sparrows are very aggressive birds. At a feeder they will often chase away birds two or three times their size. They annoy birds and bird-lovers by appropriating nesting boxes which were set up for more “desirable” native species of songbird. They will destroy the eggs of, and even kill, other adult birds and their chicks.

They multiply quickly because they have two or three broods per year, and raise about five chicks with each brood. Some bird enthusiasts dislike house sparrows intensely and want to get rid of them because they’re an alien species. But a much bigger threat to native birds is that humans continually destroy their habitat. For my part, I’ll just continue being awe of how well House Sparrows have adapted to human habitat.