(Editor’s note: Suzette Stitely is a member of the Talbot Bird Club and travels extensively for birdwatching.)

The house sparrow lives in a variety of habitats. They are hardy birds and able to live in the heat of the desert or the cold of the Arctic. (Photo by Suzette Stitely)

Introduced in Brooklyn, N.Y. in the 1800s, house sparrows have spread across our country and are one of the most common backyard birds.
Love them or hate them, the house sparrow is here to stay.
Let’s look at why they’ve been so successful.
The first fun fact is that they actually prefer habitat altered by people — no wooded forests or grasslands for them.
The house sparrow is found on every continent except Antartica and it’s always around people.
In fact, you can gauge the human population in an area based on the presence and number of house sparrows.
Secondly, humans provide them with many sites for their nest.
House sparrows love to use our structures for nests and if you live in the suburbs you may have them nesting on your property.
Fans of Eastern bluebirds and purple martins struggle to keep them out of their nest boxes.
Sadly for the house sparrow, they are not protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and it’s OK to remove them if they are not welcome.
However, it looks like the house sparrow is winning the battle as their population continues to spread across the globe.
Lastly, the house sparrow lives in a variety of habitats. They are hardy birds and able to live in the heat of the desert or the cold of the Arctic.
House sparrows have been found below sea level and up to 10,000 feet so long as there are human structures around.
That’s quite an amazing feat!
House sparrows mostly mate for life.
They find an enclosed area or cavity for their nest and fill it up with plant material, feathers and plastic or paper bits.
The cup shaped nest usually holds one to eight eggs that are whitish with brown spots.
The female begins incubating them as soon as the last egg is laid and the male will help more as the eggs near hatching.
The young are fed by both parents and are ready to leave the nest in 14 days. They are independent about a week after leaving the nest although only about 20 percent of them will survive. For those lucky ones, house sparrows still face about a 50-percent chance of survival every year.
The main causes of death are predation by hawks, cats and snakes or unseasonable severe weather.