HOSP ?

[lovezebs]

Hello Everyone,

If you've never come across HOSP, you're not alone.

I came across this term on one of Sojourner 's posts, and I've never heard it before, and had no idea what she was talking about. I asked, and found out that it refers to an English House Sparrow.

Most of just know them as the regular Sparrows, that seem to be everywhere we go.

Here's an interesting article about the HOSP. I learned so much more about them that I never knew before. I thought that others on the Forum, may find this article interesting as well.

http://www.sialis.org/hosphistory.htm

Enjoy....

[wildbird]

English Sparrows will always be welcome at my feeders & nesting areas provided for them. They are my favorite bird.

[lovezebs]

wildbird

I honestly never gave it much thought, and to the best of my recollection was not aware that they were an invasive species.

Where I lived before, I had a flock of them that used to visit my yard everyday for a snack.)

Right now I have a small herd of Chickadees in the pines, and I absolutely love them.

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
I have heard of them being quite an issue to the native birds. They are so aggressive to purple martins (killing them and their eggs and babies) that it one is advised not to install a martin nest box unless they are prepared to kill invading house sparrows and destroy any eggs they lay. I once considered catching some and keeping them as pets for a while (seems legal under the current Migratory Bird Treaty Act), until I learned of the danger they could pose to other birds.

[Babs _Owner]

lovezebs

House sparrows are brutal for sure.

[wildbird]

They don't pose any more of a problem to other cage birds than Zebra finches housed with other species. If you want to complain about wild birds being killed, hawks are the most devastating birds around my feeders. English Sparrows have always co-existed peacefully with all of the other birds at my feeders. Stray cats are the biggest threat to wild birds.

[Sojourner]

wildbird

It's not necessarily their behavior at feeders which is the concern.

It is their behavior at their nesting sites.

I'm about to get graphic. Here is why HOSPs are brutal aggressive predators.

HOSPs are cavity nesters. So are bluebirds and Purple Martins. But HOSPs are not EXCLUSIVE cavity nesters. They can nest jut about anywhere.

HOSPs are the rats of the bird world - they lay up to 5 clutches of 4-7 eggs every season. They start breeding earlier than native birds so that's one problem - they occupy many available nest cavities before other birds are even preparing for nesting.

Secondly they do not tolerate neighbors. They will attack and kill the adult parents, any hatchlings, and destroy eggs - then occupy that cavity and build another nest RIGHT ON TOP of the corpses of its previous occupants. They don't just protect their own nest; they are territorial about the entire AREA. They will kill any other bird nesting in their area if they can, and they can kill many birds larger than themselves .

If you put up nesting boxes for cavity nesters like bluebirds and purple martins, yes, you need to be ready to check them regularly and kill any HOSPs that attempt to use the nesting boxes. HOSPs are dangerous even to very small birds even when the nest opening is too small for them to enter as they will reach through even a very small nest opening and harass and kill its occupants even if the HOSPs cant get in themselves. They will hang around the opening and drive off a parent bird trying to return to the nest with food, or trap a parent inside. They are persistent and aggressive.

HOSPs will never be welcome at any feeder of mine. They will mob feeders that are not HOSP-proofed and drive off all the other birds. Sometimes you can get away with it and sometimes you can't. In MO none of my feeders were actually mobbed, but here in NV, I had so many HOSPs at my feeder once they found it that they emptied it in minutes, and drove off every other bird, including quail, pigeons, and the much larger mountain and Stellar jays. Also all my hummingbirds, who never came back.

Hawks do eat native songbirds, but they don't eat them exclusively and they don't prevent the nesting of hundreds of thousands of birds every year. That is a natural part of our native songbird's environment that they have evolved to deal with over tens and even hundreds of thousands of years.

Bluebirds were driven to near extinction by this kind of pressure - until wild bird lovers started putting up MONITORED nesting boxes for them. You have to check the nests and kill any encroaching HOSPs or these nesting sites, also, are taken over and bluebirds driven out.

http://www.daggerpress.com/2010/07/03/l ... -the-open/

https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/view ... hp?t=18616

HOSPs are not evil. They are just doing what they have evolved to do - but they are doing it in areas where the native birds have NOT evolved along with them. So they cause great ecological damage.

[wildbird]

I don't want anything to do with anyone who would kill birds for ANY reason. English Sparrows will always be welcome at my home. I will continue to feed and provide nestings sites for them. If I find any in need of care, they found the right place here. I would NEVER harm any bird intentionally.

[w.l.]

I find this use of "HOSP" truly weird.
Never heard/read it before this topic.
House sparrows are house sparrows, everyone calls them by that name, why use this weird term instead?

[lovezebs]

w.l. wildbird Sojourner Babs Icearstorm I have always known Sparrows, as simply as Sparrowsĺ

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... 113046500/

Having looked them up, I came across different images, so I'm not even sure, that the Sparrows I'm thinking of are the right ones..

Please tell me which are which...
https://goo.gl/images/KytZHf
https://goo.gl/images/Q3tvmq
https://goo.gl/images/aclxf8
https://goo.gl/images/xnC3yJ
https://goo.gl/images/zuLgfI
https://goo.gl/images/RBm60M

Will the real Sparrow please stand up???

Now the following link, shows the Sparrows that we have here.
Some are grayish, some are more brown, some have more black, and some have some red in them as well. And a couple of years ago, I saw one that definitely had some purple in his feathers They all seem to hang out together.

And so.... I am confused....

[w.l.]

lovezebs

Real sparrows are those belonging to the family Passeridae. The House sparrow is one of these.
The only relatively popular cagebird of the family is the Sudan golden sparrow.
An excellent book about the "true sparrows":
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/14081382 ... A3DISNSBGQ

Confusingly, in North America the buntings, family Emberizidae, are called sparrows, too. And certain cardinals, family Cardinalidae, are called buntings!
English common names are a mess.
It took me some time to figure out what members meant when talking of "Song sparrows" coming to their feeders.
I guess all those "wrong" common names were given to local birds by the European immigrants to North America simply because they look similar to European sparrows and buntings.
The bird on your 3rd photo is one of those "North American Sparrows" that is actually a bunting.

Love that Smithonian article, btw.

[lovezebs]

w.l.

I thought it was a good article. Glad you enjoyed it.

Yea, I find it all quite confusing as well. When I initially heard HOSP, I thought they were talking of a Hospital, lol.

There are quite a few different birds, that are called Sparrows, but not sure of the relationship, shrug

Check this out...

http://www.pbase.com/mobish/all_sparrow ... s_together

[w.l.]

lovezebs

You shouldn't be too fixated on the English names.
If you went by those, guinea pigs would be pigs, and prarie dogs would be dogs.
The page you linked to mixes true sparrows and buntings that are basically unrelated to each other, just because both groups are called sparrows in North America. The only thing the two groups have in common is mostly brown-grey color.

[lovezebs]

w.l.

That's what I mean, makes no sense.
Another weird one, is the Robin....
If you compare the English Robin, to the American Robin, they are really nothing alike.
https://goo.gl/images/QpqxWx

And yes, English does have some weird names for things

Why is a 'Butterfly', called a butter-fly?
And why are Caterpillars, called cat-er-pillars?
Then there is the Pink Fairy Armadillo
Or the Hummingbird- Hawk- Moth (?) Shrug...
And let's not forget the Forgotten Frigid Owlet (and no it's not an Owl )

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
And then there are those bird names that would get you some disapproving looks if you said them in public... (Like one of the African Penguin's several names, for example.)