# Baby bird touched by human = rejected by mother? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2000, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750 "2000-07-06T13:48:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wood\_Thrush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b38774/32.png) [@Wood\_Thrush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wood_Thrush)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/21 "2000-08-02T00:37:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lissener \* > \*\*If they’re English Sparrows (which is technically neither: it’s an African bunting), kill 'em all. English Sparrows have pushed many native songbirds out of their territories. Hate 'em. Nasty, ugly, brown little song-less vermin. > > Neither bird, of course, should ever have been released on this continent. They’ve wreaked havoc with native species ever since.\*\* What you call the “English Sparrow” is actually the house sparrow (Yes, American birds’ vernacular is standardized by the A.O.U. just as the scientific nomenclature.). The house sparrow does occur in England and is _not_ a bunting. Buntings themselves are not even in the same family as each other; some buntings are Emberizids (e.g., genus _Emberiza_) and some are Cardinalids (e.g., genus _Passerina_). House sparrows are members of Passeridae, a family also referred to in English as “Old World Sparrows.” But house sparrows are not closely related to America’s native sparrows, which are composed of quite a few genera in Emberizidae (From _Aimophilia_ to _Zonotrichia_!). Both European starlings in North America and house sparrows throughout most of their range occur nearly exclusively in the vicinity of human development. The species name for the house sparrow is aptly _domesticus_! And it was humans who purposefully introduced both species. The only reason these new birds are competing at all is because they are driven by instinct to survive. Maybe we should let the house sparrows and Europeans starlings to their own and begin eredicating humans. After all, if humans had not released these two birds and provided habitat for them in the form of developed areas, there would be no competition among them and native species. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/22 "2000-08-02T02:00:52Z")
Ahhh, _Passer domesticus_, our friend the [House Sparrow](http://www.birdphotography.com/species/hosp.html), a **weaver finch**. I now have rather intimate knowledge of these little guys having spent the last couple weeks bleeding several hundred on behalf of the CDC for a West Nile serosurvey. They are amazingly tough birds (we took about 0.45 cc from the jugular and it didn’t faze them at all - this is something I wouldn’t dream of doing to any other bird this size.) We’ll catch them again in a couple of months and look for more virus. Okay **Cheap Bastid** , what to do about those birds? Climb up with a shoebox and collect them. Take them to a rehab center. They may jump the nest and you’ll have to run after them. If they get away into a tree, then they are nearly fledged and Mom and Dad will take care of them. Keep Fluffy and Rover at bay until the kids are secured (you’d be surprised how quick a little bird can disappear). The rehab place will have the right kinds of food available and will be able to feed nestlings as frequently as they need it. Good luck. **lissener** : I agree about European Starlings (_Sturna vulgaris_). They remind me of F16s - so agile in the air. My friend tried to get me a kid earlier this year to raise as he had done. He had raised a female and said it was an amazing experience. She was free-ranging and would come back to get goodies in the kitchen. She’d fly to him and fall asleep on his knee when he was sitting down. She’d use her beak to pry between his fingers, looking for food. Later, when she was raising her own brood, she’d come back with them, take food from him and give it to her kids! Way cool. BTW, a recent decline of the House Sparrow (although I couldn’t attest to it - I found gobs and gobs of them) in the northeastern US is apparently due to the presence of the House Finch (_Carpodacus mexicanus_). House Finches appear to outcompete House Sparrows. The House Finch, although native to North America, is new to the region (it began as a release of captive birds on Long Island in the 1940’s). They are originally a western bird. Here’s one for the natives! ---
**Author:** ![Wood\_Thrush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b38774/32.png) [@Wood\_Thrush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wood_Thrush)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/23 "2000-08-02T05:14:15Z")
[This site](http://cuvc.bio.cornell.edu/mcgowan/babycrow.htm), while dealing specifically with crows, details why you should leave baby birds alone and what to do if you find a baby bird fallen out of the nest. The author, [Kevin McGowan](http://cuvc.bio.cornell.edu/mcgowan/index.html), “currently is studying [reproductive and social behavior of American Crows (_Corvus brachyrhynchos_) and Fish Crows (_Corvus ossifragus_) in the Ithaca area](http://cuvc.bio.cornell.edu/mcgowan/crowinfo.htm).” ---
**Author:** ![CheapBastid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8baadc/32.png) [@CheapBastid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheapBastid)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/24 "2000-08-02T19:43:11Z")
**brachyrhynchos** - Thank you kindly for the Rehab Center recommendation. I’ve given her contact info for [The Wildlife Waystation](http://www.waystation.org/) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/25 "2000-08-02T20:14:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by brachyrhynchos \* > \*\*BTW, a recent decline of the House Sparrow (although I couldn’t attest to it - I found gobs and gobs of them) in the northeastern US is apparently due to the presence of the House Finch (_Carpodacus mexicanus_). House Finches appear to outcompete House Sparrows. The House Finch, although native to North America, is new to the region (it began as a release of captive birds on Long Island in the 1940’s). They are originally a western bird. Here’s one for the natives! \*\* I’ve noticed this too, for about the last 10 or 12 years. Before that, you rarely saw house finches in settled areas. I remember as a child seeing a pair nest in an awning at my grandparents’ house, only to be displaced the following year by a pair of _domesticus._ Pissed me off. I hope the house finch pushes the house sparrow right off the continent. They have such a beautiful song, and they have some color to them, and of course they’re native. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2000, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750/26 "2000-08-02T20:15:35Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Wood Thrush \* \*\* > [@](#): > > The house sparrow does occur in England and is _not_ a bunting.\*\* Of course you’re right, Wood Thrush; I’m guilty of confusion (I confused my memory of domesticus’s genus [Passer] with that of the North American birds most commonly referred to as buntings [Passerina]) and of oversimplification in lumping members of one [mistaken, misremembered] genus under on generic name. (Although “sparrow” and “bunting,” as generic names, serve the same function in birds’ english colloquial names as the genera of the latin taxonomy, they were not arrived at by the same exacting system of taxonomy and say more about the birds’ perceived relationships than about their actual genetic relationships.) [meant to include this in the previous post] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baby-bird-touched-by-human-rejected-by-mother/24750.md?page=1)