Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Feathered Females in Charge
Wilson's Phalarope shouts orders
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • Daily Shows
    • Threatened
    • Grouse
    • BirdNote Presents
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
    • Success Stories
  • About
    • The BirdNote Story
    • The Team
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • Contact Us
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

House Sparrow Pool Party

Splishin' and a'splashin'!
Subscribe to the Podcast
Download
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
© Tony Tanoury

Social, chatty, ubiquitous, the House Sparrow has adapted to living in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Like most birds, these sparrows enjoy a daily bath. Set out a birdbath, and you can watch them chatter, splash, and shake, sending droplets flying. Birds like very shallow water; an inch or two is plenty. Be sure the bath has a flat rim or rocks to perch on. And make sure the area is safe from cats. Would you like to make a gift to BirdNote? Begin here.

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits
BirdNote®
House Sparrow Pool Party

Written by Frances Wood

This is BirdNote!
[Sounds of chattering House Sparrows]
Like preteens at a swimming pool, this flock of House Sparrows chatters as it splashes in a birdbath. [More House Sparrows chattering and splashing]
Pudgy, social, chatty, and ubiquitous, the House Sparrow has adapted to living in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Considered by some just another “little brown bird,” a closer look reveals more: the male House Sparrow’s head is decorated with chestnut and gray, and he sports a black bib.
Like most birds, these sparrows enjoy a daily bath. By setting out a birdbath, you can watch them lower their head and shimmy down into the water, wings slightly spread. Then they pop out and shake like a dog, water droplets flying.
If you’ve ever watched a bird bathing in a puddle, you know that birds like very shallow water; an inch or two is plenty. Be sure your birdbath has a flat rim or rocks for the birds to perch on to shake and dry.
If you aren’t interested in setting out birdfeeders, installing a birdbath can be an entertaining alternative. These chattering, gregarious House Sparrows may be the first to arrive.
[More chattering and splashing]
You, too, can “make a splash,” on our new website, birdnote.org! We’ve been telling all the stories. Now it’s your turn to tell yours! Or read what others have to say – you choose, it’s your site! [Say slowly] birdnote.org.
###
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by W.W.H. Gunn. Ambient sounds provided by Kessler Productions.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2012 Tune In to Nature.org   May 2012   Narrator: Michael Stein
ID#053105HOSPKPLU HOSP-01b 

Frances Wood
Writer
Michael Stein
Narrator
Tony Tanoury
Photographer
Support More Shows Like This

Related Resources

House Sparrow - More at All About BirdsYou can make a gift to BirdNote. Thanks!

More About These Birds

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Passer domesticus

Sights & Sounds

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • Daily Shows
  • Field Notes
  • BirdNote Presents
  • Sights & Sounds
  • About BirdNote
  • Contact BirdNote
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy