Hello Birders, An acquaintance in Dickson County sent me the following query. I'm passing it along to see if any of you would care to comment on his observations/questions. If so, send it along, and I'll copy and paste to the querant. <Allow me to address a birding question to you while I have your attention. I recall my father's differentiation between the true sparrow species here and house or English sparrows. Dad despised the latter, partially at least because of their less-than-sanitary nesting habits which seem very reminiscent of that other "foul" English import, the starling, but also, I am certain, over their eating of the chicken feed put out by his grandmother for her poultry as he grew up. In fact, he said that there was a poison that she mixed with the chicken feed (nux vomica, perhaps) that eliminated anything that consumed it which was born with its eyes closed (which would of course if true include mice) but didn't harm domestic poultry, which as you doubtless know hatch right out with both eyes wide open. He said that this eliminated the English sparrow problem, but would of course harm many native bird species. Is there anything to this story of selective poisoning in your experience or that of your friends? I suppose what got me thinking about this was my observation of a small flock of sparrows (about twenty) yesterday evening while waiting for my wife. All had the markings of the sort of sparrows that I see most frequently and the small build of native species, not English sparrows. But about a quarter of them had little black masks, just around their beaks -- not a large area covering most of their face like English sparrows and chickadees do, but a very small one mostly just below their mouths. Is this a subspecies perhaps, or some sort of genetic drift? I understand that English and true sparrows are not even of the same genus, let alone the same species, which would thus make interbreeding impossible. Do you have any idea of what gives here? Could these birds be a "sport," kind of like the cardinal that I observed at a policyholders house years ago with a white rather than a black "mask"? Is this something common that I have never taken the time and interest to observe before? If you could comment on this, I would be greatly pleased.> That's what he wrote, so let us know what you think. Thanks a lot & happy birding, Dee Thompson Nashville, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================