Sparrows (and starlings)

The neighbors caught Allen stopping up their birdhouses with mud.

They did not confront him; they came to me. His logical explanation was that the sparrows had killed the chickadee. "Oh." is what everyone said. Then Allen sprayed their yard for free.

He vehemently hates sparrows, and they pulled the chickadee right out of the house wherein she had been for days building a nest, leaving her on the ground for Allen to find - like a murderous calling card. This is how sparrows procure homes of their own, but Allen said, "Not in this yard."

Which means all conversations on the deck this summer were punctuated with pellet gunfire and cursing. The day Allen managed to shoot a starling from its perch, he left the carcass lying on the ground for the sparrows to find - like a murderous calling card. But when he stuffed one of his birdhouses with old socks, only to realize (joyously) that he had trapped actual sparrows beneath it, I began to worry. Especially when he gleefully described the sight of their helpless beaks pecking vainly at escape.

I conducted a little research on the topic of predatory sparrows, and found Allen was not alone in his disgust of these birds. There is an entire community of gentle-souled birdwatchers who speak openly of their battle with sparrows (and starlings), advising the no-nonsense extermination of the male birds. They devote earnest amounts of time, effort, and skill toward creating deterrents and traps; some rigging up devices attached to car batteries. And though the killing of a sparrow with bare hands is an image not comfortably associated with stereotypical birdwatchers, it is accurate. I think of them as ingenious guerrillas who do not hope to rid the land of all sparrows, just their own yards.

This war is so all-encompassing that even after nesting season when Allie noticed a small sparrow light on the stones near Allen's koi pond, she turned to me, saying, "Dad would have a fit."