Eye on the sparrow

Dear Editor,

A favorite church hymn, "His Eye Is On the Sparrow," certainly applies to the State of Nebraska.

We are located in a major fly zone for birds. Sparrows come here in large flocks.

Their presence in Egypt was quite obvious when I went there. Thousands roosted in trees, bushes and reeds along the Nile River.

Many farmers in our area have a bad opinion of them. They say that they are pests and have mites.

My cocker Spaniels had ear mites. I treated them with medicine, but did not classify them as pests.

Sparrows like to take dust baths. They make a hole in the ground and fling the dirt over their body. My cocker Spaniels liked to roll in the dirt. For the sparrows and the Spaniels, it was a dry shampoo.

Sparrows like to live near human dwellings. Buildings constructed by humans provide safe locations for their nests and protection from bad weather.

Under favorable conditions, their life span is about 10 years. City sparrows are often forced to scavenge for food. Their life in agricultural regions is much easier. Their diet includes seeds and small instects.

Overhanging roofs give them ideal locations for building their compact nests of dry grass and twigs. Female sparrows lay four or five white eggs with reddish-brown markings on them. When raising baby birds, they eat lots of insects.

Since ancient times, there have been positive and negative reactions to sparrows. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus used Fowls or birds as an example of divine providence.

In the 1950s, China organized a drive to get rid of sparrows. In a short time, they had a huge increase of insect pests.

Romans kept sparrows as pets. The Egyptians developed a hieroglyphic or letter using the sparrow. It means small or narrow. In Greece, people thought of them as being bad and lustful because they overpopulated large areas.

Recently, a friend of mine was required by his employer to rid the building where he worked of sparrows' nests. The sparrows responded by rebuilding their tests repeatedly.

If sparrows could talk they would probably say "We have rights, too."

Helen Ruth Arnold,

Trenton, Nebraska