Posted by garrett gilliland on August 11, 2005

Q: I'm a lifeguard at a pool that is also home to a house sparrow colony. What I observed is this: a pair of female house sparrows hovered over the pool, landed in the deeper water(deeper than 3 feet), then flew up and out after an akward second or so of floating there. They did this repetedly, over the course of an hour. They didn't seem to notice or mind that there were several swimmers within arms' reach (one even appeared to divebombed a little girl). As they normally avoided people, this seemed odd. There are much shallower areas that the sparrows often use for bathing and drinking, so I'm not sure if that is what these two were doing. This is the second time that I've seen this behavior in a female house sparrow this summer: last time was mid-June, around when this particular colony breeds. Is this relateded to breeding or is it non-breeding behavior or what?

PS: Another interesting point is that, when on the ground, the birds walk rather than hop. This only happens with the two sparrows that were 'pool-diving'.

A: Well, your question has really intrigued me! I can't give you a definitive answer but I do have some thoughts. I even called an ornithologist friend of mine to get his input and we're both stumped. Thanks for your nice description though - really makes a difference!

It's quite unusual for sparrows to alight in water to bathe. House Sparrows find shallow puddles where they can bathe with their feet on the ground. My friend thought maybe, just maybe, the sparrows were finding insects on the water and were picking them off at the pool. That sounds a bit far-fetched but hard to come up with another reason for this kind of "sparrow" bathing behaivor.

Your P.S. about the sparrows in question not hopping has me thinking that "your" sparrows, aren't sparrows at all. I'm strongly suspecious that you may have seen swallows, not sparrows, hitting the water in the pool. Swallows often bathe in this manner and although some swallows don't look at all like sparrows, some are brownish and rather sparrow-like in color. Furthermore, swallows don't hop but walk - not well but they do walk. If you saw these birds walking, was it more a waddle? Swallows have tiny feet and don't walk easily when on the ground. They look sort of like their pants have dropped down to their ankles as they walk a bit.

So, this is what I've been able to come up with. Take a look in a field guide and see if any of the swallows look similar to what you've seen. I'd love to know what you decide so if you're able to ID these birds, please let me know at jrw@enaturalist.org

Thanks for your question.

John Wiessinger ( August 12, 2005)