1 April 2021

Yes, today is April Fool’s Day but it’s no joke that house sparrows are in trouble. Though still considered pests in North America their population has declined dramatically, even in their native range. Seven years ago their disappearance was a mystery. Has anything changed?

Native to Eurasia and northern Africa, humans introduced house sparrows (Passer domesticus) to continents and islands worldwide in the 1800s, making them the most widely distributed wild bird on Earth. (Green is native range, yellow is introduced in the map below.)

House sparrows were successful worldwide — too successful — but as recently as 30 years ago they began a steady decline. They are down 84% now in North America and 60% in Europe. In the UK they are red-listed as a species of high conservation concern.

There have been many studies but no one cause for decline. The reasons include:

• Agricultural intensification (2002): lack of spilled grain and gleanings, livestock not raised outdoors, changed sowing and harvest schedules.
• Poor diet plus air pollution in cities (2017)
• Global insect decline (2019). However supplemental feeding in the UK doesn’t increase the overall population.
• Hawks are a problem in the UK but not in the US (2021)

The one thing we do know since 2014 is that there is no lack of nest sites.

In North America house sparrows are not just in trouble, they are trouble because of their aggression toward native species while nesting.

We’ll be happy to see them go but their mysterious decline should make us think. If a bird as hardy and human-oriented as the house sparrow is declining, it bodes ill for us too.

For more information read :

• My vintage blog post in 2014: Mysterious Disappearance
• Matthew Miller’s Nature.org article, 2019: Where have all the house sparrows gone?
• Cornell Lab, Feb 2021: Study finds even the common house sparrow is declining.

(photo by Tim Vechter at Westmoreland Bird and Nature Club on Facebook)

7 March 2021

This winter’s influx of northern finches has brought new enjoyment to backyard birders and death to some of the feeder birds. Pine siskins (Spinus pinus) especially are succumbing to salmonellosis, a bacterial illness spread at bird feeders.

“The first indication of the disease for bird watchers to look for is often a seemingly tame bird on or near a feeder. The birds become very lethargic, fluff out their feathers, and are easy to approach. This kind of behavior is generally uncommon to birds,” Mansfield said. “Unfortunately, at this point there is very little people can do to treat them. The best course it to leave the birds alone.”

— WDFW: Help protect wild birds from deadly salmonellosis

Reports of dead and dying feeder-birds in Washington state have prompted the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to urge people not to feed the birds until at least April 1.

It’s happening here too though not enough for an advisory, but that’s beside the point. Protect your backyard birds. Clean your feeders! What you can’t see is hurting them.

The Spruce published these handy cleaning tips, summarized below:

• Clean your bird equipment every 2 weeks, more often when a lot of birds are visiting. Crowding spreads disease.
• Empty the feeder; throw away dirty seed! (I’ve learned this lesson, too. I once had mold in the nyger feeder.)
• Mix the cleaning solution: 1 part bleach to 9 parts hot water
• Take feeder apart and soak it to loosen dirt.
• Then clean thoroughly
• Dry thoroughly
• Reassemble and refill. Ta dah!

The Spruce suggests that when you’re in the market for new bird feeders, think about how you will clean them. Sometimes wood can be hard to clean.

Read more at All About Birds and The Spruce.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

3 February 2021

It’s time to set the record straight. European starlings were indeed introduced to North America in 1890 and 1891 by the American Acclimatization Society and the man responsible for it was indeed Eugene Scheiffelin, but his plan had nothing to do with Shakespeare.

The apocryphal story is everywhere, including my own blog post in Feb 2008, Nothing But Mortimer, below, which is INCORRECT in two respects.

European starlings didn’t live in North America until 1890-1891 when a Shakespeare fan, Eugene Scheiffelin of the American Acclimatization Society, released 100 of them in New York’s Central Park because he wanted every bird mentioned in Shakespeare to live in the United States. Starlings make only one appearance in Shakespeare’s works — in Henry IV, Part 1 — and that was because they are mimics.

— Outside My Window, Nothing But Mortimer, Feb 2008

The Shakespeare story is quite intriguing but if you look into it, as did John MacNeill Miller, Associate Professor of English at Allegheny College, and his student Lauren Fugate, some of the details don’t hold up. Here are two of them:

INCORRECT: “Starlings didn’t live in North American until 1890-1891.”

Actually starlings were released in the U.S. multiple times in the 1870s and 1880s. Wild flocks were reported during that time.

INCORRECT: “Starlings are here because Eugene Scheiffelin wanted every bird mentioned in Shakespeare to live in the U.S.”

As I said, the Shakespeare connection makes it a nice story but the historical record doesn’t bear up. John Miller explains why.

As far as Lauren and I could tell, the Shakespeare connection is first mentioned by the popular mid-century science & nature writer Edwin Way Teale in his collection of essays, Days Without Time (1948). Schieffelin and the (NYC-based) American Acclimatization Society definitely released the birds in 1890 & 1891, although those were probably among the last releases, rather than the first. (The American Acclimatization Society had themselves released starlings at least once before, back in the 1870s.) So we’re talking about a space of nearly 60 years after the last AAS release that the Shakespeare link is first asserted…and more than 40 years after Schieffelin’s death in 1906.

— email from John Miller, 8 Jan 2021

Learn more about starlings in John Miller’s lecture at Phipps’ Virtual Biophilia in January 2021: Pittsburgh Meeting | A Story That Shaped the Sky:

Sorry, Starlings, to burst your literary bubble.

(photo of a European starling (mislabeled as a crow) by Pedro Szekely via Flickr Creative Commons license)

p.s. Phipps Conservatory’s Biophilia offers monthly lectures at this link.