I would not really call myself a birder, but birds have always fascinated me. We keep a 4 station feeder outside our kitchen window and hummingbird feeders on the porch during the warmer season. A time or two Señora has complained that the birds were eating us out of house and home, but she keeps buying seed. They are definitely fun to watch and we get more than a few species taking advantage of our generosity.
I have a Biology degree that specialized on the zoological side of the science. One of my regrets is that I did not have time to take an Ornithology class. We have a couple different books and an app for identifying birds which we try to do from time to time, especially if we see something different.
Sparrows are notoriously hard to identify other than as sparrows, but I have one down pat as it is exceedingly common in our backyard, the eurasian tree sparrow. When I first identified it I was vaguely shocked when I looked at the range map for eurasian tree sparrow. They are pretty much centered around St. Louis, with sightings increasing north and northeast. Their history as described on the Audubon Field Guide site is:
Brought from Germany, about 20 of these birds were released in St. Louis in 1870. The population took hold there, and they might have spread except that the House Sparrow, seemingly more aggressive and adaptable, reached the St. Louis area at about the same time.
I had been toying with the idea of writing a blog article about this bird when this article popped up as I was perusing the online edition of the local alternative newspaper, Riverfront Times: The Bird That Lives in St. Louis — and Pretty Much Only St. Louis
Of course, introducing species into new areas frequently has unintended consequences. It was the introduction of starlings that caused the reduction of bluebirds in the Midwest. Do you want to talk about kudzu in the South?
I off to see if the feeders need filling…
I have two feeders hanging outside my office window. I love using the Merlin app to ID them.
Where we lived in Texas was a super highway for birds moving north and south. Over 300 species were identified. Muskogee has a unique group too including pelicans. A friend told me they didn’t show up until the barges started transporting on the river.
One of my favorites is the scissortail. They winter in the Bahamas. A friend in Texas has a wooden plank going back 3 generations with the date the first scissortails showed up each year. Another friend who worked in south Louisiana talked about the birds ganging up and feeding before heading across the water.
Super Cool