Bird on a wire
March 20, 2008
This sparrow and his mate are busy all day feeding their chicks in the bottle birdhouse.
I wonder if the same pair returns every spring, or if perhaps one of the chicks hatched here has come home to roost, so to speak.
By no means are they silent, but they don’t tell me the answer.
My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather. —Loire Hartwould
All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Those pesky House Sparrows. We have so many that it isn’t fun having them. They do make the
garden seem lively. I think with them all hangign around here they attract other birds that
might normally just fly on past.
I kind of like them. They aren’t so numerous here as to be pesky, but they do add life and birdsong to the garden. I hear that they eat a lot of bugs. I hope that’s true! Being nearly in town, my garden doesn’t attract the beautiful birds of the fields, like bluebirds, red-winged blackbirds, scissor-tailed flycatchers, and the like. I’m lucky to get a few wrens, mockingbirds, cardinals, grackles, white-winged doves, sparrows, and the occasional house finch, blue jay, and chickadee. Actually, that’s more than I’d thought. 🙂 —Pam
Pam,
This is a sweet shot of the sparrows, they have a lovely home with an attached garden and gardener. That’s the life!
This morning the Rufous Sided Towhees were out and about the garden, naturally, I never have the camera ready.
Gail
Some birds (maybe the towhees?) are so skittish you can hardly ever get a picture of them. The sparrows, on the other hand, are practically like house pets, and will often sit for a quick portrait. —Pam
Your bottle birdhouse is really cool–did you make it?
We see lots of sparrows around here, too, but no nests that I know of. We do have a pair of Carolina wrens nesting in one of my hanging plants, though. 🙂
The bottle birdhouse is modeled on the ones the colonists used, supposedly. I bought it years ago from Monticello catalog. It’s the most popular birdhouse in my garden. —Pam
I always welcome the sparrows — their song is the first and the sweetest on spring mornings. 🙂
They do have a sweet song. —Pam
I love the sparrows, what wonderful photos, as always. Your bird house is sweet when empty and glorious when full, like now!
Frances
It’s always sweet to hear chicks chirping in the garden. They keep Mama and Papa very busy. —Pam
Even though sparrows are not liked by everyone, I love them, and attract as many as I can to my garden. They are my main insect controllers. I have about 30 birdhouses just for the sparrows. They are seed eaters, but their babies are voracious insectivores.
Catherine, you’re the one who was recently extolling the bug-catching virtues of the sparrow, aren’t you? That gave me another reason to appreciate them. —Pam
Your sparrows are so sweet, and I love that bottle birdhouse. We have a good sized collection of house sparrows, and tree sparrows during the winter too. There are several other varieties that will come back soon.
I think the little fellow in the first photo is in a huff because you caught him at an undignified angle 🙂 My husband had a good caption for the photo 🙂
Oh now, Kerri. You’ve tantalized me with that hint about the caption for the sparrow caught from behind. Won’t you share it, or is it too naughty? 🙂 —Pam
I just finished reading Providence of a Sparrow by Chris Chester. The guy nursed a fallen house sparrow back to health, and it became his best friend. By the end of the book, he and his bride had turned the entire upstairs of their house over to an assortment of sparrows, finches and the odd canary. Parts of the book are flamboyantly overwritten and/or technical, but the relationships of birds to humans are engagingly portrayed. Thanks for the photos (yours are always stellar). They help me to understand the connection a little better.
That sounds like an interesting tale. Thanks for commenting, Ricki. —Pam
I’ve been cruising your blog over a cuppa tea. Beautiful:).
Thanks, Sandy. —Pam