Mother Nature sends neighborhood enforcer
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- September 5, 2023
- 606
This summer, in an effort to “passively disinvite” the horde of house sparrows that have taken over my neighborhood, I allowed my bird feeders to run dry for the first time in years. There are many schools of thought on whether or not to feed in the summer, and I do my best to listen to all voices and draw my own conclusions. This decision, however, was about nothing more than bouncing the pesky sparrows onto their next home rather than their final destination.
I’ll remind you here that as a relentlessly aggressive invasive species that actively displaces some of our most beautiful and ecologically valuable native songbirds, the house sparrow — also known as the English sparrow — can be killed at will during any time of the year. As a city-dweller my options are limited in that regard, so I figured that by eliminating their food source, I might at least rock their world a bit by sawing off one of the feet of the four-legged stool of animal survival — food, water, shelter and space.
In my greater vision, I’d imagined that at least some of the little varmints would look across the lawn to my organic garden and take a liking to the ample population of bugs and slugs therein. This dream has yet to come to fruition.
While a pair of goldfinches dutifully visit to gather lettuce seeds each day, the cleaning crew of sparrows I’d hoped for has not yet materialized in my garden. Worse still, my flock of sparrows needed travel no further than over the fence to the patio of my kind-hearted next-door sister to resume their cycle of debauchery and dependency.
There is hope on the horizon, however. None other than Mother Nature herself has taken on the case, and she’s sent a ruthless enforcer to do her bidding — enter the Cooper’s hawk. I’ve often marveled and sometimes lamented the occasional raid on my wintertime feeders by this stealthy predator. His appetite is indiscriminate. If he’s got an angle on a kill, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a sparrow or a cardinal, and I’ve seen him take both right from the perch of my feeder. But with a current population of nothing but sparrows, his antenna seems to have tuned to the easy pickings.
From a dead spruce snag conveniently overlooking my sister’s feeders, the small, agile hawk watches, patient and unflinching like a sniper scoping for the cleanest kill. It’s rather amazing how rapidly and silently the predator drops from the tree to the perch and equally impressive how consistently this method pays off in a meal. It’s a bit amusing as well at how oblivious to the situation the flock of sparrows seems to be. The survivors scatter to the nearby hedges almost instantly, but within a few minutes, with the scene cleared of both victim and assailant, they return to the center of the bull's-eye once again.
With the help of my sharp-eyed and long-taloned neighborhood watchman, I’ll be able to confidently refill my feeders as the fall migration begins to kick in over the next few weeks.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.