Sparrow Family

Every year we are hosts to several families of sparrow who live in the bird houses we erected years ago. These are the most common of the birds in our area next to robins and are really interesting to watch. The have a unique social  behaviour that leads me to believe that they have a definite communication code with other sparrow families in the vicinity. 

They all live in pairs and each member of the family share in the work of building their nests. They share the house cleaning and gathering of food. When they have their babies and are attacked by blue jays or blackbirds they set up an alarm and all the sparrows in the area come to their aid.

It is really fascinating to watch the feeding of the young. Our one family has four young ones and this morning I observed them being fed by three different adults. 

This particular bird house has fostered more than score of families during the past ten years. We love to hear them singing their songs outside of our window at 3:30 am and end when the sun goes down.

Very soon these young ones will have to leave the nest and that is another display of tough love as the adults have to literally drag some of the reluctant chicks out of the safety of the house to fly on their own. Mother nature sometimes permits we mortals a look into the reality of bringing up young ones and we can learn plenty from the birds. I probably will write something about our little friends next year as they do impact our lives in a very positive manner. We are all for the birds I suppose.