H.J. Ruiz – Avian101

One of the nicest places in Florida is the Sarasota Bay-front. The beautiful marinas filled with wonderfully elegant yachts, sailboats and speedboats that make your jaw drop. There’s a colorful park with a nice fountain of sculptured dolphins. It has other sculptures and ample gardens filled with tropical flowers and exotic plants. I was very impressed with the architectural and design of the area.

House Sparrow

What I’m trying to do is giving you the preamble to the main story.

I noticed some small birds hopping around the parked cars and also going into the hedges they moved very fast and concealed themselves quickly. I was real intrigued by them because I couldn’t see them long enough to figure what species they were, until one flew to a ledge that is part of a large arched gate to the Sarasota Bay-front.

(See photo below with the red arrow pointing at ledge) Then I could see that It happened to be a House Sparrow, seems like they are very abundant in Sarasota, they feed on scrap from the picnic areas, tourists and anything that they can find.

They have adapted to the urban area as well as the presence of humans, they go almost unnoticed but for example, if someone is eating a ice cream and a piece of cone falls to the ground, in matter of a few minutes it will be gone. Some House Sparrow comes out of the brush and very discretely picks up the dropped food scrap. In a way they are helping humans to keep the streets clean. It’s cool don’t you think? 🙂

See the red arrow

All photographs are © H.J.Ruiz – “My Backyard Visitors” Shot in Sarasota, Fl.