Lord Martin has the purple, I mean, floor

Although me and mine appreciate all the assistance we can get from the unfortunate race of bipedal creatures known as “American suburbanites” in our War of Independence against the nefarious European invaders (a.k.a. Common Starlings and House Sparrows), we would ask for our dear and kind allies to – don't get me wrong – realize that sometimes the Declaration of the Right of Birds have to play second fiddle to more pragmatic, immediate but likely more effective methods of actions. In plain English, DON'T RELOCATE THE BLOODY STARLINGS AFTER YOU CAUGHT THEM IN YOUR SPARROW TRAPS!!! May we also ask one of your high priest-wizards, commonly but not entirely correctly referred to as “scientists”, to use their magical skills and engineer a new deadly disease which selectively targets Common Starlings and House Sparrows only? Of course, the brood-parasitical provocations of the Brown-Headed Cowbird is the next causus belli, but then, nature red in tooth and beak, yes? Martin Purple, elected plenipotentiary of the Purple Martin tribe, over and out. And merry Xmas!

Call out the drones

Wait a sec… A nefarious, evil, invasive HOUSE SPARROW, with a product description in French??!! Wild “Republic” (make that Empire) just sold us down the river. The Moselle river, presumably. Somebody should convene the House Sparrow Un-American Activities Committee, and get ready to punish these vile European invaders by sending out Bald Eagles as drones! What's next, I wonder? Toy starlings? Toy cowbirds? Toy quiche, even???

The old boys have left the building

This is the seventh and concluding volume of "Birds of Africa", a work that took almost 20 years to complete. One of the editors, Stuart Keith, passed away before the publication of this last volume, and it's therefore dedicated to his memory. Incidentally, all the editors look like members of some colonial White old boys club!

Apparently, "Birds of Africa" was originally intended to be a four-volume work, with two volumes each for non-passerines and passerines. This proved overoptimistic in the extreme. Seriously, what did they expect? The total number of African bird species is about 2,130. And yes, most are passerines... Academic Press therefore permitted the project to swell to a whooping seven volumes. Even so, the publishers did get somewhat worried when the project dragged out over several decades, eventually forcing the small editorial club to expand to about a dozen members.

Six passerine families are included in Vol. VII, including sparrows, weavers and finches. I wasn't too surprised to find the House Sparrow in this volume. It occurs naturally in North Africa, but has been introduced in sub-Saharan Africa as well, where it's thriving around human habitat. The Tree Sparrow by contrast is a rare and uncommon resident and winter visitor in North Africa, but hasn't been able to establish itself anywhere else on the dark continent. Well, at least Africans don't have to worry about stepping on it! (I always do when walking in Swedish parks. I mean, these birds are ridiculously small.)

Otherwise, this volume is similar in character to the other volumes. The color plates are surprisingly good, while the text can be heavy reading for the general reader. It's a reference work for scientists and libraries, after all, not something you can actually "read" from cover to cover. I'm sure it works well as a reference work, and hope the old boys have find another outlet for their creative energies after finishing this series. How about a book about...well, American birds?

Three cheers for the Tree Sparrow!

This is an entertaining book. Really. The author, J. Denis Summers-Smith, has spent 50 years studying sparrows. You heard me. He has been studying *sparrows* for 50 years. Apparently, they even call him Sparrow Man. The man has visited far-away places such as Siberia, Afghanistan and Iran with the sole purpose of observing sparrows! This is his fourth book on this rather obscure subject.

"The Tree Sparrow" is essentially a mini-encyclopaedia about the Tree Sparrow, one of the 25 species of sparrows. It's not suited for the general reader, being filled with detailed and somewhat technical information. Rather, it's a reference work for ornithologists and (perhaps) advanced bird-watchers.

Still, I found the book interesting, in a strange kind of way. I'm one of those "bad bird-watchers", after all. Here in Sweden, telling the difference between House Sparrows and Tree Sparrows is considered common knowledge. It's something every child learns already in preschool, or even earlier. At least in the suburbs of Stockholm, both sparrows can be seen, often in mixed flocks. Tree Sparrows are so small that I often fear accidentally stepping on them and crushing them whenever I take a walk through suburbia! Confusingly, the Tree Sparrow is called "Willow Finch" in Swedish.

From Sparrow Man's book, I learned that the Tree Sparrow is a colonial and social species. Unusually, both sexes look almost identical. To get a competitive advantage over other small passerines, the Tree Sparrows choose and defend a potential nesting site long before the actual breeding season. Another strategy is to attack and take over completed nests of other songbirds, destroying their eggs in the process! Great Tits and Blue Tits can be attacked in this way. Even in mixed species flocks, Tree Sparrows aren't the subordinate species, but fall somewhere in the middle of the dominance hierarchy. (I had expected these micro birds to be the pushovers of the bird world!) Of course, Tree Sparrows might get attacked by larger birds.

The Tree Sparrow's main competitor is the House Sparrow, a similar but sturdier species. House Sparrows are dominant over Tree Sparrows. For instance, House Sparrows always take higher-placed nest boxes, leaving lower-placed nest boxes (where the danger of predation by snakes and weasels is greater) to Tree Sparrows. If all nest boxes are placed low, House Sparrows attempt, with varied rates of success, to displace their smaller cousins altogether. Both prefer urban settings, but apparently "this town aint big enough for both of us". In areas where both species are represented, the House Sparrow lives in the cities, while the Tree Sparrow is forced to become a suburban or even rural bird. In East Asia, where there are no House Sparrows, the Tree Sparrow has become an urban species. In parts of Siberia, both species are relatively new, and still compete with each other in the Siberian towns, while in Afghanistan, the Tree Sparrow have somehow forced the House Sparrow to become the rural species. (Since House Sparrows usually never loose against the smaller Tree Sparrows, some have suggested that the meek Afghan House Sparrow must be a separate species.) Despite this intense competition, the two species occasionally interbreed. Photos of these hybrid sparrows are included in the book. The author believes that interbreeding takes places in areas where both species are rare. Rather than giving up breeding altogether, Tree Sparrows who can't find a mate, pair bond with House Sparrows. The hybrids are viable, but it's not clear whether they are really fertile. (Some other hybrid sparrows are.)

From the book, we further learn that Tree Sparrows have a staggeringly high mortality rate. 20% make it to their first breeding season, and only 4% are alive by the second breeding season. Predation by raptors and cats is common, and pesticides can be another threat. Ironically, when Sparrowhawks were decimated by pesticides in Britain, the number of Tree Sparrows started climbing. In China, humans kill Tree Sparrows and export them to Italy, where they are eaten! 60 years ago, the untractable Chairman Mao even ordered an extermination campaign against Tree Sparrows, ordering every citizen in China to participate. Millions of sparrows were killed in the belief that this would increase rice yields. It didn't. Apparently, the poor sparrows didn't live exclusively on rice grains. Another great victory for Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought?

What I find most fascinating with books of this kind, are the little pieces of truly weird information. Thus, we learn that Tree Sparrows once nested in a hollow coconut on an island outside Thailand (the author saw it happen - he actually visited Thailand to study breeding Tree Sparrows). Or that a small group of these sparrows somewhere in Europe actually laid their eggs in the lower part of a Rook's nest, while the Rook was still using the upper part. In another strange case, the care of a parasitic Cuckoo chick reared by Wagtails was taken over by Tree Sparrows! It's unclear whether the Tree Sparrows attacked the Wagtails in order to take over their nest, only to be mesmerized by the Cuckoo? Sometimes, crime really doesn't pay...

Three cheers for Sparrow Man and his Tree Sparrows!

Birds and bowers

This is the 14th volume of the mega-encyclopaedia "Handbook of the Birds of the World" (HBW), published by Lynx Editions.

This volume covers 17 passerine families, including bowerbirds, birds of paradise, corvids, starlings and Old World sparrows. All species are extensively described and illustrated on large colour plates.

There are also introductory chapters to the various families, complete with photos. Some of these are quite spectacular, including a drongo attacking an eagle, a House Crow chasing a flying fox, and a raven being attacked by a kestrel. Some other photos are more humorous, such as the one with a small girl eating ice cream, while the tray besides hers is frequented by House Sparrows. For whatever reason, the photographers seem to love birds sitting on top of cows, camels and buffaloes!

The most bizarre group of birds covered in this volume are presumably the bowerbirds, their "bowers" sometimes eerily resembling small human-built huts, complete with neatly arranged colourful objects outside, almost as if somebody was preparing a ritual of some sort. Indeed, the natives of Australia and New Guinea assumed that the bowerbirds *were* conducting rituals, and believed these birds to be supernatural. After watching the photos of bowerbirds and their bowers in this book, I see why!

As usual, the HBW is extremely expensive and the text is rather heavy. This is a book for the reference section of a university library, rather than something for the average reader. Still, the colour plates and fanciful photographs make it well worth waiting for, in case you do order it!

Both this volume and earlier ones can be ordered directly from the publisher.