Evening star., 1947-11-19
This and That
BIZ Charles E. Trdce1Dell

Friends of the common sparrow will be In
terested in the following story from an Alex
andrian:
Some children brought me baby sparrow
that had fallen from nest when painters
pulled vines from porch nearby.
II fed 1t and in few days 1t ate without any
help from me- went to Yosemite Park later
on and took the sparrow with me. He stayed
under the lapel of my coat or in my pocket.
II decided that Yosemite would be good
home for him so turned him out with the
hundreds of other birds in the woods.
when they few away he came back to my
shoulder Then I went to Denver and Omaha,
and he travelled with me, in my pocket
Il had come from the tropics so I suffered
when saw sparrows out in the cold in Colo
RADIO, Nebraska and Iowa.
my sparrow was admired so much that
many persons said they would feed the SPAR
rows every winter. When he died, in Iowa, I
missed him very much"
The common sparrow is an interesting beau-
tiful bird.
If there were just few of him, every locker
would agree to this
But because he comes in large numbers, and
is supposed to drive bluebirds from nesting
sites, he Is too often looked down upon, except
by the knowing.
The latter realizes full we'll that the common
sparrow is bird as well as any.
When it comes to their feeding stations in
the cold, they welcome it, and its sisters and
its cousins and its aunts.
Why not?
1t is as hungry as any.
1t does good work for mankind by eating
many inimical insects and quantities OF weed
seeds.
If it also consumes about half of the grass
seed put out, how can it be blamed?
Grass seed, to seed eating Bird is as good
food as the more expensive bird food mixtures.
The householder should not grow red in the
face when he sees the sparroWs eating his grass
seed, but should put out an extra pound or two.
Sparrows love rose vines If the friend OF
birds desires to please them, he will do well
to plant Van Fleet, PaulS Scarlet OF some
other good climber.
Whatever spell exists in numbers, the COM
mon sparrows exemplify it, as they perch in the
cold in the branches of a rose vine on a
fence.
They like to fly from such vantage place
to the formal feeding station and back again.
This is doing what comes naturally to spar
rows, evidently.
The birds also like to gather in such vine
for the regular afternoon sing-fest
This is a sight and sound not given by any
other local species during the winter months.
It is all very well to say, as some OF the
books do, that its song "is harsh chirp." Nom
sense Together, these chirps make real choral
music, of a sort guaranteed to attract the
notice of any musically inclined listener.
For these and many other reasons. the COM
mon sparrows are to be greeted with pleasure,
especially at the winter bird feeding station.
Their sweeping flights across the yard are
pictures no artist can paint.
No artist, certainly, has tried, as far as we
Know. Probably they have been kept of by
the propaganda against the sparrow, but we
recommend that they try their hand at such a
picture, some day. against snowy background.
Propaganda lines, too, change. from time to
time; in the years to come, we are convinced,
the common sparrow Is going to become one OF
Americas most popular birds.