In this section are copies of original works of art. All of them are dedicated to helping us live according to unconditional love and compassion, which is the foundation of our peaceful means of bringing true and lasting peace to all of God's creatures, whether they are human beings or other animals.
(Artwork -
202)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
I suspect, in competition with the Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), there is
no species of wild bird seen by more people more often than this one, the
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus). That is in part because they are native
to most of Eurasia, and in part because the species has been established by
humans in much of Australasia, Oceania (including Hawaii), the Americas and
Africa. Also, they are not only tolerant of humans, they usually closely
co-exist with people in the heart of towns and big cities, farms and
villages, generally avoiding wilderness and uninhabited regions. When I was
a child, they were more often referred to as “English Sparrows”, a misnomer
for so widely distributed a species. They are predominately seed-eaters
although they will eat insects, too, especially when feeding young. They are
prolific and often hated as agricultural “pests”, and for “bullying” other
bird species. On average they weigh about thirty grams, a tad over an ounce.
They are often culturally associated with fecundity and lustfulness, and
easy to see why when two or more males mix conspicuous breeding displays
with very aggressive-looking fighting among themselves. Being common and
lacking brightly pretty colours does not help make them attractive to many
people.
But despite all that, I quite like them…the successful little immigrants who
take advantage of what life offers, and that would include the two feeders I
hang in the branches of a weeping mulberry tree below the window of the
master bedroom in my home, which I use, in fact, as a studio and office. It
faces north and on a bleak day in February I can look out while I am
painting and see the House Sparrows in the mulberry. That is, in fact, the
inspiration for this painting. Other, native species sometimes join them,
but they are, for me, endlessly entertaining. They also, several times each
winter, attract a passing Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), at which
time they plunge into the thickly branched heart of the mulberry while the
frustrated hawk dances about, plunging a foot down through the intricacies
of interlaced trigs and branches in forlorn hope of snagging a fresh, warm
meal. As skilled a predator as the little hawks are, I’ve yet to see them
catch a sparrow in that particular tree. Once the hawk leaves, I always wait
and eventually am awarded by seeing individual sparrow heads pop up, one by
one, looking around until, satisfied that the coast is clear, they emerge
and continue chirping, feeding, resting and other activities. In my painting
I exercised artistic licence and thinned the branches out considerably.
The birds are as they appear in February, but they change their appearance
through the year, not by molting their feathers, but by wearing off the pale
tips of them to reveal, in the males, solid black bibs in time to impress
the females, in just another month or two. The dull-coloured beaks turn jet
black. Those throat and upper breast-covering bibs vary in shape and size,
apparently getting larger as the birds age. One of the things I like about
portraying groups of birds of the same species is that it gives me a chance
to show some of the “individual variation” that occurs within a species.
There is no exact, “typical” appearance for any given kind of bird or
mammal.
House Sparrows generally nest in cavities, or crevices, including under
eaves and loose roof tiles. Their numbers have reportedly decreased in parts
of their European native range, but they certainly are doing well overall.
They show geographic variation, and already the first signs of “divergence”
are appearing in birds in the Americas, as they inevitably evolve along a
slightly different trajectory away from their ancestral “type”. This
painting is in oils on compressed hardboard and is 24 by 18 inches.
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Copyright © Barry Kent MacKay
Barry describes himself as a Canadian artist/writer/naturalist.
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