Birds then.

With the killing of a house sparrow in The Netherlands (English speaking people go here), I was suprised to find out that in Holland, the common house sparrow had been put on the endangered species list. They are?

Yes, these litle critters are. They can be cute in a way, particularly when eating a sandwich. You give some to one lonely looking sparrow, next moment they’ve invited their whole extended family.

They’re not as common over here though and they definitely don’t look like the ones over in Europe. We have different birds over here, something I noticed when I settled down over here in NS, years ago. It was like paradise: birds I didn’t recognized like the Bluejay (they’re pigs I hear), the Chickadee and particularly the Starling, the bird I mistook for the Blackbird (the one Dutch people call ‘merel’). They’re not even related.

In image: Left to right, clockwise: starling, house sparrow, bluejay, chickadee and blackbird.

Bonus link: Tuft’s, Birds of Nova Scotia, online