"Of the House"

This House Sparrow is a resident of Montmartre! What a life it must lead! The best pastry leftovers to feast on!
My uncle took me here last March (wow a year already!) and these are the most fearless sparrows I have met. I could not have been standing more than 4 ft when I took this shot!

I was originally going to start this piece off by discussing the House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, perhaps the most pedestrian of winged creatures. But I think the bigger story here is how we choose to look at the world and value critters like the "lowly" P. domesticus. So here we go:

I think many of you who know me know that I can easily find most anything interesting and thus worthy of a few minutes of contemplation. But I realize that trait is not present for everyone out there. There have been some posts where I thought readers would lose interest for sure due to the seemingly dull subject matter discussed. You know I can't hold giant birds every week :) So sometimes I do think to myself: "Is anyone going to care about this slug I found on my walk?" or "Will anyone be interested in corn tiling and field drainage?"

Eh. But I start writing anyways because sometimes it's a slow week. And you know what, no matter what it is, there is always a story to be told. Dig deeper and suddenly everything has a fascinating narrative.

There are many people in science who seek out those narratives, who see something overlooked and throw it under a microscope (I can think of a few right now as I type)! Chief among them, in my mind at least, is Rob Dunn of NC State. He is a lover of all creatures, especially ones that are oft under appreciated and/or looked upon scornfully. Thanks to him, Passer domesticus is enjoying a little bit of the lime light this past week due to a great article written by him on Smithsonian.com! It really is awesome so refill your cup, sit back and enjoy :)

He is a proponent of urban ecology which simply seeks to investigate the ecology of urban spaces. Pretty straight forward right? Why hasn't anyone done this before?? Well, what's the first image you have when you think of an ECOLOGIST? Charles Darwin chasing finches on the Galapagos Islands? Jane Goodall hanging with primates? Perhaps Jacques Cousteau descending into the murky depths?

Surely it is not some dude or chick rummaging around the train tracks for bugs! Well, make room at table because there is some new blood up in here! OK, so it's not so new but the field is still very small. The predominate thought, that nature is what happens when people are not around, is simply not true. But as kids (and adults) we grow up on books and media showcasing the lands and organisms of the far-removed African savannah, boreal forests, and colorful reef systems and yet, know extremely little about the very system we are a part of.

I attended an entomology lecture at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum one afternoon long, long ago and though the memory is very blurry, I do recall that a group of scientists did a bug survey in a local marsh-type area near someone's house in Virginia and ended up finding an array of species and abundances they were not expecting. The speaker happily exclaimed that you need not always travel to exotic locales to make fun discoveries. That's not to say everyone should stop doing that research, but just that we ought to take care to not overlook our own backyards, even though the view may not make much of a postcard.

It's obvious that urban systems are their own unique ecosystem. No one planned on building a home for anything else but humans when they made the first cities/settlements. But adapt nature did! There are pigeons, rats, bedbugs, ants, mice, roaches, sparrows and a plenty more! All pests you say? Well, yes - to us. But they are just creatures making the best of it; and how can they resist when we've made it so easy? We give them food, space, shelter and to some, a warm body to snuggle up to at night! Sure, there are things like exterminators and house cats, but somehow I think the bedbug and pigeon populations are managing all right. One interesting note, many of those creatures probably stood out as disease carriers right? It makes sense that many wildlife-to-human diseases are transmitted to us via these hardy critters because those are the guys we live around and thus most commonly come into contact with. *Note to self: discuss this aspect more in detail in a later post.*

Anyways, it is almost midnight now so I leave you with some urban species, mainly of the avian form:

Another Montmartre House sparrow

Paroaria coronata, introduced to Hawaii

Spotted dove, Spilopelia chinensis, introduced all around the Pacific, it is fast replacing native doves in Australia. This one I found on Oahu.
European starling, Sturnus vulgaris. Christ, it's species name is vulgaris! Hahahaha. Ok really, the Latin word vulgaris means 'of the common people' or something to that effect. There are many near my apartment. I actually like the sound these birds make; they are known to be great mimics and are capable of a range of weird quirky noises. They usually have a very mechanical sound which I find infinitely amusing. Is that a machine or bird outside my window??