IMAGINE Your Life from the Point of a Bluebird – Trying to Keep a Sparrow out of your Bluebird House
There is a very quiet, if not silent battle that goes on everyday right “under our noses” between House Sparrows and Bluebirds. And we, yes, you and I must engage in it in order to help Bluebirds survive and thrive. Hopefully, you are sitting down, relaxing and enjoying your own live and personal Bluebird view as you read this blog. Now, I want you to join in on a little imaginary trip. It’s going to be a bit of a “bumpy” read. It may get a little uncomfortable as I put you in the parallel world of a Bluebird. I apologize in advance for any discomfort, but please hang in there with me.
- Imagine an extremely aggressive person or persons that will harass and attack and compete with you for your home
- Imagine such people don’t ever leave your area. They don’t go to Florida for the winter, they only move, let say in the range of one half to a five mile area from where you live.
- Imagine that such people are so very abundant in your neighborhood, in fact they never even existed prior to 1850, but now they are an extremely abundant population and exist basically everywhere
- Imagine, in addition to wanting to take over your home, they will take shelter almost anywhere, including at your local restaurants, or at or in shopping centers, your local orange or blue big box home improvement stores
- Imagine these people will eat anything to survive and even garbage can be a primary source of nourishment
- Imagine, these peoples’ population has exploded at an alarming rate and have caused extensive damage to your local neighborhoods, the landscape, your gardens and fruit trees
- Imagine, that they overtake and chase away your friends and family
- Imagine, such people that populate rapidly, OK, let’s stop there and not go down that path; enough imagining for now on this topic….let’s move on, but I think you get the point where this one was potentially going
- These “people” I describe represent the English House Sparrow, a.k.a., the Sparrow, a.k.a., the House Sparrow (the HOSP), and it is one of the most abundant songbirds in North America and most widely distributed bird on the planet
Time Out on Keeping House Sparrows out of Bluebird Houses, Please
Okay, okay, enough, enough! You’ve got to be saying, “stop, please stop! I get the point, House Sparrows and Bluebirds should NOT mix! I get the point! Let’s just say it and restate so that we’ll hear it one more time and we all be on the “same page” in terms of what this battle is that’s going on out there in our Bluebirds’ world.
The House Sparrow, the English House Sparrow, the HOSP is not native to North America, as stated by many, many sources, including the American Bird Conservancy. It is an extreme predator and it is the number one predator threat to Bluebirds. To be brutally blunt, House Sparrows are out there killing Bluebirds and it’s a real threat!
And, let’s take it a few steps further to state that it is every one of our common responsibilities as enjoyers of Bluebirds to make sure that House Sparrows and Bluebirds do NOT mix and that House Sparrows do not invade, nest and fledge from a Bluebird nest box.
We’ve Imagined the Life of House Sparrows and Bluebirds, but What is it That We Are Seeing?
We’ve journeyed down a bit of an imaginary path, in our minds and in our imaginations of House Sparrows and Bluebirds. So, in order to make sure we are all on the same page, at this point I’m even wondering, what does one of these monster little Sparrows look like? How can we all be on the same page if we don’t know the devil we are chasing? And, this is where me, being the author of this Bluebird blog (wow, try to say that ten times super-fast without messing up), is going to take the liberty to say let’s take a step sidewise from the Bluebird blog, (I’m just going to call it BlueBlog from here forward because I’ve already proven to myself that I can’t say it ten times super-fast without messing up) …..and ”click here” to see what a Sparrow Monster really looks like.
My apologies for that. If you happened to have read my “All Things Bluebirds” Introductory BlueBlog (hey did you see what I did there? I slipped in the word “BlueBlog” in place of “Bluebird Blog,” tricky, huh?), In that introductory blog, I did mention that the journey down the path of “All Things Bluebirds” would be light-hearted and perhaps even shoot for some humor once in a while. Of course, humor is always relative and more often held in the mind of the humorist rather than the “humoree.” So, thanks for humoring me, and anyhow, let’s get serious and try to erase and “unsee” the image of the “Sparrow-saurus Rex,” if you can.
Seriously now, let’s take a look at what seems to be an endless, endless list of images of the English House Sparrow, a.k.a., the Sparrow, a.k.a., the House Sparrow (the HOSP) – Google Images – House Sparrow
Are you back? Did you do a little homework? Did you step aside and go look at the monster? Not “Sparrow-saurus Rex” again, but the HOSP? Were you scared? I’m guessing probably not. Me neither. But don’t be fooled. There’s no question about it, it’s an absolute fact that, that tiny little bundle of brown and tan fluffy feathers is an absolute menace and threat to the well-being, life and survival of the Bluebird! House Sparrows are killing Bluebirds. Lock that into your minds, please.
So I’m Concerned about this Clash between House Sparrows and Bluebirds, but What to Do Now?
Well for starters, hopefully you are sitting down, relaxing and enjoying your own live and personal Bluebird view as you look to wrap up reading this BlueBlog. And, as we continue the journey down this path of “All Things Bluebirds,” we will explore and dig deep to how to control predators, and in particular, the monster we’ve come to know as the HOSP or more specifically, the House Sparrow. I don’t know about you, but after the imaginary exercise of the few paragraphs above, I need a little break before we do that deep dive into the world of protecting our Bluebirds. But, as the “BlueBlogger,” (that’s me by the way…..you know, the person writing the Bluebird Blog, a.k.a., the BlueBlog, which therefore leads to me becoming the BlueBlogger), I will let you know that we will be doing an in depth exploration of the many, many options of Bluebird predator controls, and with a special eye on the House Sparrow and Bluebirds.