… can one chick have? Tragic news. Our little sparrow has lost its foster parents.
The hapless chick © Elis Simpson
This morning we noted that there were no visits from the adult males that were feeding it yesterday. So Elis took the chick downstairs and left it in a secure place keeping an eye on it. She then discovered a dead adult male sparrow, one can only assume that it was one of the foster parents from yesterday.
Adult male House Sparrow © Rick Simpson
I am actually fairly certain it is because if you note in the following photo of the unfortunate beast there is a white feather out of place below the eye. I noticed in one of the shots not published here yesterday (when I was trying to prove that two individuals were involved), that one of the birds had this unusual feather, but as we only had one shot of it I couldn’t be sure if it was a real mark or an aberration on the photo.
Note white feather below the eye © Rick Simpson
Back to the chick; in the place where Elis put the chick a band of House Sparrows soon congregated, all females at first, but they just gathered around, seemingly out of curiosity, none tried to feed it. Then a male arrived, it appeared to attack the chick and then chase off all the females. Elis removed the chick from that position and tried somewhere else. She noticed that one of the females followed her making a call that the males yesterday had been making when they were attending to the chick. Elis placed the chick on the floor and retired to a safe distance. A male sat watching from a telephone wire when suddenly the female appeared and started to feed the chick, returning time and again with food for it.
Irresistible © Elis Simpson
Female feeding the chick © Elis Simpson
The male was never far away but never fed the chick © Elis Simpson
We were also able to procure, from a local bird breeder, some meal-worms that we gave to the chick to supplement what seemed to be a diet of scraps that the female was giving it.
Sadly, despite all the effort on the part of the local sparrow community and our own best efforts, the chick didn’t make it through the night. A sad end, but the reaction of the local adults, who may or may not have been the chick’s natural parents, was most interesting.
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