I rescued a sparrow this morning, which definitely made my day. It was still early and as I opened my back door, I noticed a sparrow had got one of it’s legs tangled up in a piece of thread that had caught on a dried palm flower stalk. So I went and got the ladder and a small pair of sharp scissors to free the bird.
As I approached, the sparrow fluttered anxiously, but I just talked quietly and it gradually calmed down. I put the ladder in place and started cutting the threads. I talked calmly and quietly the whole time, and the sparrow remained calm as it hung upside down. It just took a couple of minutes to cut all the threads and off it flew into the nearest tree. What a great start to my day!
I don’t have any good pics of sparrows yet (we call them sparrows but it’s actually the Barbados Bullfinch) - maybe the one I rescued will come back and pose for me, but I do have a photo of the flower stalk that it was tangled up with.
Sparrows are very busy little birds, and fight for their territory. “Fight” might be a bit of a dramatic word, but they do get up close and personal in a fierce looking and noisy fashion if another sparrow gets too close to the nest.
They have short beaks and feed on seeds from grasses, palms (the same one in the rescue incident) and other similar plants that produce small seeds. Once the seed is small enough they will be interested.
The feathers are a nondescript brown/grey, and I have not been able to detect noticeable differences between the male and the female. They build tight little nests with twigs, bits of dry grass, threads, and I’ve even seen them pick up the cat hair that I get from brushing my cats - something nice and soft with which to line the nest.
They build their nests in shrubs and trees usually, but any outdoor light fitting or guttering or other seemingly suitable location will do. Any they are very persistent at nest building. Every year, a pair tries desperately to build a nest at the top of one of the supports for my deck roof. There’s a little space that looks promising, but it’s also very windy and the pieces get blown away, but I’m sure that one year they will be successful.
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