Evening star., 1944-07-06
This and That
Bp Charles L. Trace1pell.

Here is \ voice in the wilderness stick
ing up for the English sparrow. and
the male bird, at that
Recalling Fathers day. it says. Il
am moved to write you of father,
unsung and unsinging. of whom the
words spoken are more curst than
kind.
He is Mr.. Jack Sparrow One has
heard from childhood up now the
mother bird feeds her young, but never
have heard any one tell how Father
Sparrow and the boys come to a window
sill feeder and how dad shucks the
seed, fills his bill, and then rams it
down the squawking NAV of mis- off,
spring.
You'd think he'd sneak a seed or
two for himself, but he doesn't. At
least not in front of his children. He
flies OF to feed elsewhere.
&k
"And what brats his children are"
Great big lummoxes quite as big
AS mother and dad. and quite capable
of feeding themselves, which they
promptly do when their parents get
too completely exhausted and fly of.
Then when they come back, what
show the brats put on-what helpless
hutterings and cheepings. When they
get filled up for the steenth time, they
calmly fly of leaving their parents
what crumbs are left
"All Gods chillun may have wings,
but the winged children that are quite
the most brattish are young grackles.
They are homely to look at, painful
70 hear, and it Is difficult to believe
that they will ever grow up to be the
elegant and colorful birds their parents
are.
There is no more beautiful blue than
the head and neck of . grackle in full
sunlight.
Some day I wish that you would
expand your interesting description of
the purple finch by telling OF his WOO
ing. One very early dawn recently, I
was his entranced spectator He was
on the fiat top Of lovely old stone
wall up here in these granite hills
New Hampshire).
His lady love was so much the color
Of the stone I could not at first see
her. But there was no missing the
sprite that danced before her
Il thought 1t was 4 fairy or one Of
the wee folk. He danced on his toes,
his rose-red crest high, and his rosy
chest lifted with the bubbling melody
from his beak.
His wings were held down and fully
spread like a ballet skirt. Then at
given phrase in his song the two birds
did dos-a-dos and changed places.
This happened twice. And then the
lady was cold to his suit, and flew up
into tree. The lover turned his back
on her, sleeked down all his feathers,
and whirling violently new directly
at me. I ducked and he missed my
Scotties head by a hair"
English sparrowS are good parents.
They may have from Is to 80 young
ones year, and each baby receives
devoted care
The father sparrow, in addition to his
help at feeding time, as outlined above,
assists at carrying nesting material
He fights off intruders, and is never
weary In caring for the nestlings
The house sparrow, according to the
''The Book of Birds" issued by the Ma
tional Geographic Society, is not really
sparrow. From the true sparrows
1t differs, among other ways, in build
ing covered nest"
We believe most ornithologists class
the English sparrow as a weaver finch.
Thanks to mans assistance, this bird
Is now known around the world. A few
brought to the United States in 1850
have turned into millions. and so sent
to Australia became hundreds OF thou
sands. r
We recently watched q cowbird baby
being fed by a mother song sparrow.
1t was beautiful light gray bird, about
four times as large as its faithful foster
mother.
When she flew away, it fed itself
very capably, but the moment she re-
turned, it put up great hue and cry
for food.
Startling babies are very large and
ugly, asking to be fed ut all times, and
acting In very irritated manner toward
their parents. X.
Probably the most independent Of all
baby birds are the young robins, which
try to feed themselves within q few
days out q The naot.