Saturday 3rd: As you know, we keep a bowl of live mealworms just inside the backdoor and two female Blackbirds (one sometimes accompanied by the male) regularly come in to feed. But when they do, a gang of House Sparrows follow and will rob the Blackbird of mealworms and sometimes even sit in the bowl and feed as this fearless fledgling House Sparrow above shows! The House Sparrows sometimes wait until the Blackbird has a beak full of mealworms and just like Gulls do to smaller birds at the coast...chase and hassle her so that she drops some or all of the food. The common House Sparrow turning to piracy!
If the Blackbird snaps at the Sparrows as she sometimes will, they just ignore her! The majority of this piracy is carried-out by the females. It sure does make for an interesting sight to see a Blackbird with a beak-full of mealworms being chased at low-level back to her nest by several House Sparrows!
Last Saturday while some Sparrows were in the kitchen, the local Sparrowhawk came to visit the garden. She must have chicks herself as she is making more frequent forays now. The alarm-call went up and all birds dived for cover. Those in the kitchen scattered to a nearby bush but one panicked and flew out the kitchen door and up the stairs! She flew along the landing and into the bathroom then back out along the landing again and into the Study! Fortunately Mel and I were there to see this and Mel grabbed a couple of snaps.
Eventually, when the bird was settled, we opened the window and out she flew. This is not the first time either. As reported in this blog last year, May 19th, a couple of House Sparrows flew upstairs into the study were they both perched side-by-side on the back of the chair. Going back a few years...well back to 2000, we had a fledgling Blue Tit fly into the house and cling to the curtains in panic. A photo of this is shown below. We did manage to get the bird and release it into the back garden where it met it's relieved mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment