One Jackdaw Birding: American Tree Sparrow

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Cute Factor

I borrowed the expression from a 2006 article in the New York Times Cuteness is characterized by baby-like features, such as big eyes, small nose, or beak, and a large forehead. I tried to track down the origin of the word but all I found in Shipley's book on the Origins of English Words was that it is a shortened version of "acute" i.e. sharp or pointed, which doesn't make sense for our use of the word.

This cuteness as a characteristic of young helpless animals seems to be universal in the animal world. Think of fawns, piglets, penguins, ducklings.... Even a Triceratops yearling with its large eyes was probably cute in the eyes of its mother.

So, when looking at photos of an American Tree Sparrow the first words that come to my mind is "how cute!", with their big bright chestnut crown, their prominent shiny eyes, their small beak and that little black button on their chest.

White-crowned Sparrows are not far behind in terms of cuteness.

So what does it all mean? I have no idea. Read what fellow blogger Chris Petrak has to say about "cute". He also thinks we ought to eliminate "nice", "amazing", "awesome" .... How about added "stunning" and "gorgeous"? I don't agree with him there. Many times you just want to let someone know that you enjoyed looking at their pictures, without attempting a specific critique - and when reading comments, superlatives are the going coin of the realm.

To change the subject, we used to have many red squirrels visiting our bird feeder, generally outnumbering gray squirrels. In fact until a few years ago I rarely ever saw a gray squirrel. Red squirrels are usually very noisy, scolding and chattering from a near tree branch or the roof of our deck, but those sounds have been missing lately..

They, too, look cute with their large eyes and stubby nose, but they are an aggressive and highly excitable species. We were always worried about them establishing themselves in our attic which led us to purchase and install a "Squirrel Evictor" strobe light. I am just realizing now that I haven't seen or heard a red squirrel for at least a month.

In the UK the native red squirrels have become endangered due to the spread of the squirrelpox, a virus apparently introduced with the release of a Canadian grey squirrel by a misguided animal lover. Is that happening here too?

I am wondering whether anybody else is having the same experience. If so, please contact me.

Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment.

Monday, October 25, 2010

A World of Sparrows

Where I grew up in Germany there was only one kind of sparrow, the common domestic House Sparrow which was ubiquitous and very social - just as they are here - nesting under roof shingles, in ivy growing over fences or houses, in trees and hedges. Sitting in an outdoor cafe you'd always have the company of sparrows picking up crumbs under the table or off your plate if you weren't looking.

However, when I went back to visit my mom and sister in Hamburg last year, I couldn't find any. They seemed to have vanished. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking for the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, which in the USA is confined to a small area in the Midwest. Trying to figure it out I did a search on Google and found that the House Sparrow, along with the Starling and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, had actually been placed on the Red List of endangered birds in the UK. The list cited both long-term and short-term breeding decline, most likely due to loss of agricultural habitat.
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House Sparrow courting

Although they have disappeared from the center of many cities, they are still present in most towns and villages. And that's were I eventually found them. I was visiting my cousin's farm to look for the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. The ivy covering the old brick house was swarming with nesting House Sparrows, and the sought after Tree Sparrows were roosting in a tree behind the barn, where they had ready access to grain.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow with characteristic chestnut cap and black cheek patch

Eurasian Tree Sparrow chick and parent

Fall is the time for sparrows after most of the other songbirds have left for their winter quarters. Most of them feed on the ground, in the grass and frequent brushy weedy habitats. It is often difficult to get a good look at them, since the scatter as soon as you approach, fly low over the ground and plunge back into the vegetation

The White-crowned Sparrow is present in VT during their spring and fall migration. They breed in Arctic or alpine tundra. I think they are the most handsome of all our sparrows.