View from the window...Why can't we be friends

The view outside our window has a basic sameness each day. The trees, the houses across the street, the apartment building in the distance; they remain fixed. Yet within this framework life unfolds differently each day. 

Sometimes you notice something small like a change in the outline of the roof on the apartment building across the park. Yesterday a smooth unbroken line; today uneven dark bumps at the corner. I take a photo so that I see what is there. 

Turns out to be a few pigeons... well, actually, more than a few.

I expect that if this becomes a regular perch, the superintendent of the building will be getting a phone call. All that billing and cooing (and other things resulting from a lot of big birds overhead) might not be welcome come the spring.  

It reminds me of my love/hate relationship with house sparrows, who similarly haunt the neighbourhood in large groups. Now, the front yard has had many evolutions over the years. This one year, I rescued the framework of a gazebo and reconfigured the panels to form a long trellis. I planted some climbing roses to grow up and cover it and then I thought it would be a good spot for my collection of birdhouses. 

Great, right? If you look closely there are sparrows and a cardinal perching, and a blue jay on the tall crook beside. So folks started moving into the bird houses and I thought, well, this is sweet, all chirping baby birds....

And then, it was baby birds falling out of nests, 

and dead baby birds in the grass, and squabbling in the neighbourhood. I found out that sparrows are a heartless lot; if they want your nest box, they will pull all the nesting material out and take over. They will pull out your baby birds so that they can house and have their own baby birds. The drive to survive, I guess. 

So then they take over your yard as claimed territory. I didn't mind being a landlady but I put seeds out so that I would see a variety of birds. The sparrows became aggressive and bullied others away. So I then filled the feeders with seeds that were specific to the birds that I wanted to see. False advertising; they adapted! I took perches off, but that also made it difficult for cardinals. 

So... I evicted them.

From the front yard. And moved them to the back. It took them a little while to adjust and they still like to hang out front.

They are not as territorial now, which allows other birds to be more comfortable in the front yard. We put up another birdhouse with a 'front door' sized for wrens or chickadees, and we have had both move in. Each spring though, there are sparrows who try make it their home but without success.

I have noticed some interest from the nuthatches so maybe they might be this year's new home owners. I read though that they prefer tree cavities so that may be a fond hope. 

So while there is no chance of being rid of sparrows, I will hope to remain good neighbours from a distance...at some distance...well, maybe just not in the front yard?