IT ALL STARTED in the first grade--65 years ago--probably first with the rubber-band fights in Don's bedroom, followed by BB-gun wars on
English sparrows. Those weren't unusual for young boys, but what was unusual was Don's approach.
ENGLISH sparrows and starlings eat the farmer's grain I his corpse.
"Cleaning up bird droppings is a very dangerous business and must be handled with precision and care," said Phil Waldorf, president of Bell Environmental Services who has also written a book about the subject entitled, Health Hazards From Pigeons, Starlings and
English Sparrows. "The Discovery Channel's investigation of our line of work will help educate Americans about all the damage that bird droppings can inflict on buildings and the health of its tenants."
A small flock of
English sparrows were feeding on the seeds dislodged from my hanging feeder.
Even the
English sparrows do not let loose into the streets young sparrows who have no notion of their identity or their adult responsibilities.
House finches, rosy finches,
English sparrows, Eastern and Western bluebirds and that ever-growing category, "linnets" - which seems to most people to include any small bird that can't be easily identified - can't get a whole grape in their beaks.
To make matters worse, aggressive foreign competitors like
English sparrows and starlings took over the nesting sites that remained.
In the past two years, I have published a book entitled Health Hazards From Pigeons, Starlings and
English Sparrows and created a website www.birdcleanup.com to alert the public to the health hazards pest birds cause when they nest on a building's roof or in or near its HVAC systems.
