My Temple of Nature: Avian Aliens

I have a new bird that started coming to my bird feeder - a song sparrow! Now you're probably wondering why I'm so excited about a sparrow. I have hordes of HOUSE sparrows, sometimes a flock of 30 or 40 will show up. They throw the seed everywhere, and clean out the feeder in no time. They are the bane of my existence! Okay, well that IS a little dramatic, probably 'annoying' would cover it. But any time a different kind of sparrow shows up, it's unique and thoroughly encouraged.

Song Sparrow Photo by Will Elder Source: National Park Service

When it first showed up, I wasn't sure what it was. I always get confused when it's a brown bird - there are so many and all the pictures start to look the same. I checked out the bird book and read something about it having a dominant brown spot on the breast. Yesterday morning I saw that it, indeed, had that spot. Ahhh, little brown bird identified.

My bird book says it's probably the best known of our native sparrows and is found almost everywhere in North America. Hmmm. So why didn't I know it and why have I never seen one around before? And why is there only one? Well, I would assume if there's one there must be a mate somewhere. Actually I thought I may have seen a second one just this morning (Tuesday). But there are certainly not hordes of them like the house sparrows.

Female and male house sparrow Source: Northern Voices

The page where I found the above picture says that the house sparrow is on the decline. Its original range was around the Mediterranean and Europe, and introduced to the U.S. in New York as natural pest control. The article went on to say that it's an endangered species in the Netherlands and has been put on their red list. I'd be glad to send them some of mine!

The only other type of sparrow I've seen is the chipping sparrow. A visit from the little chipper always makes me smile. But again, I only see one at a time - never a flock.

Chipping sparrow Source: Wikipedia

The other thrill I got today was seeing the hawk. I first noticed the hawk when I was sitting in my chair in the living room when in a flash I saw a bird take a house sparrow off the roof of my neighbor's house! It took me a minute to believe what I had just seen. It all happened so fast there was no way to identify the offending predator. I've caught a glimpse of it in the trees on occasion, but never had my binoculars with me to really get a good look. Today it was sitting on top of a telephone pole right near my house so I was able to grab my binoculars. The problem is I'm still not totally sure what it is!

Originally I thought it might be a Cooper's Hawk, but I think it's bigger than that (it's so hard to judge size from a distance). But now I THINK what I saw today was a male Northern Harrier. Also when I first saw it take the sparrow off the roof I saw mostly brown. Today it looked more gray, but it was raining. It would make sense since the female Northern harrier is brown, while the male is slate gray. Also today its back was toward me nearly the whole time, but I could still see some marks of brown on its breast. However, the bird book says the harrier hunts by flying close to the ground and taking small animals by surprise. So would a harrier take a sparrow off a roof? The bird book claims it is mostly silent except at the nest, and today it sat and called and called the entire time. The book also says the Cooper's Hawk has a barred tail which I don't recall seeing, but is more likely to take birds out of the air. I think a pigeon got taken the other day - I saw a lot of feathers floating to the ground, but didn't see the strike. The pictures of the Cooper's Hawk also shows feathered legs which I didn't see today. So now you can see why I'm still uncertain.