starling-free zones to report any sightings so they could send out squads, armed with shotguns, to defend the area.
Schieffelinâs fateful decision to bring the starling to North America was not only inspired by the Bard. His other inspiration was the runaway success of an earlier European import: the house sparrow, the oldest bird on the city block.
The house sparrow has a long association with urban living. These pocket-sized birds with their distinguishing chestnut-brown backs, white cheeks and black eye stripes took to living alongside us from the moment we shifted from nomadic wanderers to settled farmers some ten thousand years ago. Thatâs about the same time we domesticated dogs and a good couple thousand years before cats joined the ranks of humanityâs favored companions.
The settled life suited the house sparrow. By all accounts they are slothful birds, rarely looking for food beyond a mile from their nests. Even the most adventurous individuals rarely travel more than four miles from their birthplace in their entire life. Not that they needed to roam far after hooking up with us. The crevices and cavities of our buildings proved to be ideal nesting sites, and the grain we gathered, stored, and spilled provided plenty of food. Sothe sparrow stuck with us, tagging along as we spread out of the Middle East establishing settlements across the landmass of Africa, Asia and Europe. By Renaissance times, sparrows were a daily sight in European cities and towns.
Peopleâs attitudes to these avian interlopers were mixed. Some encouraged them by hanging earthenware pots from their roofs for them to nest in, while farmers regarded them as grain-gobbling pests. The Lutherans of Dresden even declared a ban on the birds after some dared to chirp and copulate in church during their sermons. For the poor they wereâand, as weâll see, still areâa potential meal, with sparrow pie a favorite among European peasants.
Regardless of human opinion, sparrows were part of the fabric of European life by the time the acclimatization movement emerged, so they became a prime candidate for introduction to the new worlds. And in the early 1850s, a group of New Yorkers imported one hundred British house sparrows. After they were delivered via steamship from Liverpool, England, the birds were set free to go forth and multiply, and that they most certainly did. Those pioneer sparrows and their offspring fanned out from Manhattan, spreading north, pushing south, and driving west. Between 1868 and 1888 their North American range grew at an average of 118 miles per yearânearly three times faster than the American pioneers pushed back the western frontier.
The sparrows stumbled briefly at the one hundredth meridian, the line that divides the moist East of the United States from the arid West and runs along the western border of Oklahoma (excluding the panhandle). But as with the starlings facing the Great Plains, the plucky birds soon overcame that natural obstacle. By 1910 house sparrows had colonized North America. They could be found in northern Mexico, in the cities along the Pacific coast, and in much of southern Canada, where they survived harsh winters by nesting in railroad houses and grain elevators. Come 1917 they had even turned up on the ranches of Death Valley.
The same was happening in South America. Following introductions in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, the sparrow conquered Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. The birds even reached Ushuaia, the worldâs southernmost city on the Argentine portion of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Amazon rainforest blocked the sparrowâs northward advance, but when Brazil began building the Trans-Amazonian Highway in the 1970s, the birds followed the construction workers, making nests in the new buildings and trees lining the 2,485-mile road.
These introductions have made the house sparrow one of the worldâs most
Schieffelinâs fateful decision to bring the starling to North America was not only inspired by the Bard. His other inspiration was the runaway success of an earlier European import: the house sparrow, the oldest bird on the city block.
The house sparrow has a long association with urban living. These pocket-sized birds with their distinguishing chestnut-brown backs, white cheeks and black eye stripes took to living alongside us from the moment we shifted from nomadic wanderers to settled farmers some ten thousand years ago. Thatâs about the same time we domesticated dogs and a good couple thousand years before cats joined the ranks of humanityâs favored companions.
The settled life suited the house sparrow. By all accounts they are slothful birds, rarely looking for food beyond a mile from their nests. Even the most adventurous individuals rarely travel more than four miles from their birthplace in their entire life. Not that they needed to roam far after hooking up with us. The crevices and cavities of our buildings proved to be ideal nesting sites, and the grain we gathered, stored, and spilled provided plenty of food. Sothe sparrow stuck with us, tagging along as we spread out of the Middle East establishing settlements across the landmass of Africa, Asia and Europe. By Renaissance times, sparrows were a daily sight in European cities and towns.
Peopleâs attitudes to these avian interlopers were mixed. Some encouraged them by hanging earthenware pots from their roofs for them to nest in, while farmers regarded them as grain-gobbling pests. The Lutherans of Dresden even declared a ban on the birds after some dared to chirp and copulate in church during their sermons. For the poor they wereâand, as weâll see, still areâa potential meal, with sparrow pie a favorite among European peasants.
Regardless of human opinion, sparrows were part of the fabric of European life by the time the acclimatization movement emerged, so they became a prime candidate for introduction to the new worlds. And in the early 1850s, a group of New Yorkers imported one hundred British house sparrows. After they were delivered via steamship from Liverpool, England, the birds were set free to go forth and multiply, and that they most certainly did. Those pioneer sparrows and their offspring fanned out from Manhattan, spreading north, pushing south, and driving west. Between 1868 and 1888 their North American range grew at an average of 118 miles per yearânearly three times faster than the American pioneers pushed back the western frontier.
The sparrows stumbled briefly at the one hundredth meridian, the line that divides the moist East of the United States from the arid West and runs along the western border of Oklahoma (excluding the panhandle). But as with the starlings facing the Great Plains, the plucky birds soon overcame that natural obstacle. By 1910 house sparrows had colonized North America. They could be found in northern Mexico, in the cities along the Pacific coast, and in much of southern Canada, where they survived harsh winters by nesting in railroad houses and grain elevators. Come 1917 they had even turned up on the ranches of Death Valley.
The same was happening in South America. Following introductions in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, the sparrow conquered Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. The birds even reached Ushuaia, the worldâs southernmost city on the Argentine portion of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Amazon rainforest blocked the sparrowâs northward advance, but when Brazil began building the Trans-Amazonian Highway in the 1970s, the birds followed the construction workers, making nests in the new buildings and trees lining the 2,485-mile road.
These introductions have made the house sparrow one of the worldâs most
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