A Bird for the Common Man

As a young teenager in the mid-'50s I lived in town at 3 Chestnut Street. We had a small back yard, really a side yard. Initially we had no bird feeders, but people in my family seemed to know about birds. I remember the excitement when a Rose-breasted Grosbeak showed up in our Japonica bush. I'm not sure I'd recognize a Japonica bush these days but I sure would know a black, white and red grosbeak if one was around.

After that we had a series of bird feeders, plus we put seed on the ground and lots of breadcrumbs. But, being in town, birds came to our yard slowly and reluctantly. It seemed that only the most ordinary species would show up, many of them being House Sparrows. It was hard to get excited about them. I mean, yes, the boys and girls are different and they do change with the season, but birders mainly consider them "trash" birds - not really worth looking at.

Then my friend and mentor Edith Andrews injected some spice into the idea of studying House Sparrows.

"This is where you'll find Dickcissels," she would say.

I hardly knew what a Dickcissel was but the name certainly sounded cool.

I had two bird books then, the Nantucket one that Edith had written with Ludlow Griscom and my bible, Roger Tory Peterson's field guide. I looked in Edith's book and alas, no Dickcissel. That bird was unknown on Nantucket before 1948.

Dr. Peterson saved the day. He pictured the Dickcissel cleverly juxtaposed with my familiar House Sparrow on the same page. It was a sparrow-sized bird - streaky brown on the back, but with a smart black cravat in front bordered with bright lemon yellow. There was a yellow stripe over the eye. Mrs. Dickcissel lacked the cravat, but still had a yellow wash on the throat and that yellow eye stripe.

I could see what they looked like, but the range information did not sound hopeful, mainly between the Rockies and the Appalachians in summer. In winter they were supposed to be in Central America. Peterson did add a tantalizing note though, "May rarely winter in e. U.S. (at feeding trays with sparrows)."

Now, I had a reason to study my House Sparrows. There's really something to be said for getting to know our common birds very well. Anything out of the ordinary jumps out at you. Shortly thereafter, one Dickcissel, then a pair, showed up at Mrs. Andrews' feeding station over on Gardner Court. It seemed amazing that her prediction had come true so quickly. We enjoyed their yellow splash of color and also their snappy chestnut shoulders.

Dickcissels and House Sparrows would seem to be strange bedfellows. Although they look similar, they are not closely related. The Dickcissel's scientific name is Spiza americana - literally an American finch. Charles Lucien Bonaparte (Napoleon's nephew) classed it originally with the European buntings and added the 'americana' name to distinguish it.

House Sparrows are not native here at all, having been introduced with great difficulty from Europe in the middle 1800s as a method of pest control. Within 20 years, it became apparent they were rather horrid pests themselves, yet by then it was too late to reverse the process.

One year I birded in Ohio and found Dickcissels singing from almost every bush and wire. They are named for their song. In reality they seem to stutter their way through it - a bit, more like "Dick, dick, ciss ciss sell." But the song is difficult to miss, the males singing almost constantly from when they arrive in May into July.

Unfortunately this is the male's main contribution to the reproduction process other than a splash of DNA. The female builds the nest, does all the incubation and all the feeding. The male continuously encourages her by singing, but that's about it. There is one recorded case where a Sharp-shinned Hawk carried off a female Dickcissel that was bringing food to her five-dayold young. The male Dickcissel sang on for two days while the babies slowly starved to death. Nature is harsh and hard to figure at times.

Within their range, Dickcissels are abundant. Many of the early studies of birds focussed on whether they were beneficial to humans or not. It was estimated that the one million Dickcissels in Illinois consumed 100 million grasshoppers every day during the nesting season.

But here on Nantucket these birds are rare from late August until the end of April. They rise to "uncommon" during October. There have been six separate records for them already this season.

Even if you live in town and only have House Sparrows coming to your yard, you could be lucky enough to host a Dickcissel. These birds with the splash of yellow, also known as "little meadowlarks" or "black-throated buntings," love to hang out with your most mundane day-to-day sparrows. Like the lass kissing all the frogs to find the handsome prince, don't hesitate to ponder every sparrow to find your Dickcissel. I

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles.