Sparrowpalooza at Fallen Feathers!

"Baby bird season" here in southern Arizona is March through September. It's a long breeding season, due to the warm climate. During the year, Fallen Feathers will take in over 1200 birds; the majority of them come in during these months.

Today I picked up a passel of passerines. House sparrows, to be specific. Six feathered, not-yet-fledglings, and 12 naked hatchlings. Eighteen mouths to feed!

House sparrows are not native to Arizona (or to North America, actually), and therefore are not covered under the International Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (and amendments). Because of this, I am able to show you pictures of the birds actively being raised and/or rehabilitated.

Picture 1 is of nine naked nestlings, sorted vaguely by size and strength. All photos by Delphia Strickland.

Picture 2 is a closer look at the hatchlings, where you can see where their feathers will be coming in (see the tiny little "pins" on the edges of the wing on the one on the bottom left? And the black dots down the back.). The yellow sides to their mouths indicate they are a gaping bird, which means they open their mouths and beg for food to be dropped into the mouth, which they then swallow; this is opposed to the "beak-in-throat" method of, say, doves. The yellow coloring eventually disappears as the bird matures.

Picture 3 is of older chicks, nearing fledging, with most of their feathers having grown in. They were so eager to get fed that it was hard to get a good, clear shot.

Sparrow chicks can be quite loud, with their high-pitched "cheep! cheep! cheep!" being easily heard several houses away. They are also very insistent: when they are hungry, the want to be fed nownownowrightnowrightthisminutenow. Stuff them full of food, they stop cheeping and fall asleep, like you flipped a switch and they just turned off.


House sparrows need to eat every 15-30 minutes, from sunrise to sunset, depending on what they are eating and how old they are. No, I'm not kidding. Sparrow parents are very busy birds!

Sparrows eat insects, worms, grains, fruits and berries. Picture 4 is of the foods we are feeding our sparrows: omnivore diet (top); insectivore diet (right); and baby bird formula (left). The hand-rearing formula I'm using for the smallest birds, as they have trouble swallowing the more solid pieces of food. In a few days, they will be able to eat the insectivore and omnivore diets.

A sad truth about wild birds is that on average, only 50% of all hatchlings survive to adulthood. Some of the reasons why a chick might not survive are:

• failure to thrive


• birth defect


• hatching injury


• weather


• predation


• disease


• siblicide


• starvation


• falls

A hatchling will be in our care for as long as 3 months, depending on how well the chick fares, if it has an injury that needs to heal, and if it will be healthy enough/physically able to be released. We normally like to release birds in the area from which they came, but it's very difficult to keep sparrows segregated and identifiable without banding them, which we don't do and is not needed for any scientific or record-keeping reason. Plus, sparrows are flock birds, and so we rear them in age groups and release them all at the same time.

I hope to post update pictures of these guys, to show you the progression of their growth and, with any luck, their release -- even if they don't really belong here, they do belong in the wild.

-- Bird Girl

Addendum: As of this edit, the three tiniest sparrows, sadly, did not survive.

04-15-10 Edit: The sparrows are getting bigger!