THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 14, 1995 TAG: 9504140540
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Look at that bird, will you!
Thinks he's found a foe, an intruder in his territory.
Fighting his own image in the side-view mirror of a Blazer.
Can you imagine a fighter pitted against himself? What a gate that would get in Vegas!
Mike Tyson vs. Mike Tyson.
It's a song sparrow, a breed noted for its sweet song and not for its sweet science, which is what boxing writers call prizefighting.
David Hughes, who leads bird-watchers hereabouts, identified it from photographs Bill Tiernan took in Chesapeake. Our correspondent at Western Branch High School, Pamela Brown, showed him the sparrow.
In the spring, Hughes noted, many male birds become very territorial and aggressive during the mating season. Seeing their reflections in shiny surfaces - mirrors, hubcaps, windows - they hurl themselves at their images.
Hughes has seen Carolina wrens, cardinals, robins, mockingbirds fighting themselves.
Sometimes a bird will fling himself so fiercely at his image that he falls back stunned.
In the spring, the whole world of birds becomes a ring.
Call it the territorial imperative!
It reminds me of nations.
One Sunday in mid-February, as Pamela was setting out for church, she came upon the combative song sparrow pecking the car mirror.
When she returned an hour or so later, the persistent sparrow was still at it. When the Blazer's away, the bird turns to one of two other cars nearby.
You find as many as seven variant species of song sparrows in North America. Their lovely melodies vary slightly here and there.
The song sparrow has a heavily streaked breast and a central spot at which the streaks come together - like a stick pin or a tie tack, Hughes observed.
The spot is indistinct in Tiernan's pictures because our gladiator has fluffed his feathers to fool the foe.
The song sparrow is the most common of our native sparrows. Only the house sparrow, an immigrant from England, outnumbers it.
So, fight fans, here's the best avian pugilist pound for pound, the sparrow who spars with a Blazer. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by BILL TIERNAN, Staff
A song sparrow perches calmly on the mirror of a car parked on
Mornington Drive in Chesapeake, apparently unaware that he is about
to encounter an fierce intruder.
Suddenly, the bird spies a familiar rival. It being the spring
mating season, the bird's territorial instincts take over and he
confronts the intruder.
The face-off quickly turns into a full-fledged flap. Other species
of birds are said to be prone to the same such springtime scraps.
These include Carolina wrens, cardinals, robins and mockingbirds.
by CNB