Fish-eating Song Sparrow

I ran across this older image recently while preparing a blog post. It had been a very harsh winter with lots of crusty snow on the ground and several bird species that don't normally eat fish were using them as a food source simply to survive. These fish, mostly carp, had been killed by refuge managers and then the eagles would drag them to shore or up on the ice.

If you look carefully you can see a morsel of fish flesh in the tip of the beak of the sparrow. Interesting adaptive behavior I thought.

how interesting, Ron! definitely not behavior I'd associate with a Song Sparrow. What month was this taken? Do Song Sparrows winter up there? here I'm used to seeing them only at pretty low elevations in winter.

What month was this taken? Do Song Sparrows winter up there?

Brian - at least some Song Sparrows are here all year. The image was taken on 2/8/08. Even the harriers were eating fish that winter - something I hadn't seen before or since.

Very cool behavior, Ron.

Very interesting, Ron, and great photo to boot. Very low water levels last fall at Quivira NWR here in central Kansas led to a massive carp die off. I saw harriers feasting on the dead fish, as well as Whooping Cranes. Seeing the Whoopers eating fish surprised the Wildlife and Parks warden; he had worked at Aransas and was very familiar with Whooping Cranes. I think all the dead fish is what caused the Whoopers to stay as long as they did, and in the same locations. Bald Eagles numbers soared to over 200 birds during this time, also.

As those of us who live in cold climates know, if you touch something wet to cold metal, it will freeze and stick. For some reason, little boys think they should touch their tongues to metal playground equipment. Usually, part of the tongue stays. It happened to the small son of a friend of mine. An hour later I looked out at the swing set, and chickadees were foraging on the bits of frozen tissue.

So, yes, birds are pretty adaptable.

Nice image and good documentation.

My wife feeds mealworms to many of the backyard birds - the wrens, thrashers, and mockingbirds love them. We were surprised to find that the Abert's Towhees do as well.

While I haven't heard of this particular feed item in their diet, when one considers almost all "songbirds" at some point feed on insects. larvae, etc,.it's not really a great stretch to eating flesh. Being hungry can make many animals, including humans, do things they normally don't do. I wish I had my copy of Bent's to look this up. The Bent series, although old, had wonderful anectdotal information and very detailed data about stomach contents and the like. I'd be interested to see if this popped up in the Song Sparrow account.

Peter

Really interesting info - and a good image as well.

I suppose "food" is "FOOD" when a bird is hungry and desperate for calories to keep warm and sustain life.

Sandy