First sighting of wayward sparrow around Fairbanks during Arctic Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count
Fairbanks birdwatchers braved temperatures well below zero this month for the Count Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count, an annual citizen science project that surveys bird populations.
On Saturday, a few dozen birdwatchers tallied up their findings at the Fairbanks Unitarian Universalist Church. Fish and Game wildlife educator Mark Ross called out the birds his team found, species by species, until he came to the rarest find.
“Four boreal chickadees, one pine grosbeak, 110 redpolls…” he said, “...And one Passer domesticus in a barn!”
Passer domesticus is the house sparrow — one of the most common birds in the world. It’s usually found in urban environments, but not anywhere in Alaska.
This one, a female, is the first ever recorded in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and only the second in Interior Alaska. The other, a male, was sighted on the Taylor Highway in April.
Fairbanks birdwatcher Levi Grudzinski found the bird holed up at his workplace, Alaska Feed Company, about a month ago.
The company’s open-air feed barn offers some shelter from the cold outside. Bales of hay and bags of grain are stacked to the ceiling.
'A pretty good set-up' for sparrow
Grudzinski said it makes for a pretty good setup.
“It's got dryness, it's got leaked bags of feed, it's got plenty of straw and hay to nest and nibble on,” Grudzinski said.
How it got in there is anyone’s guess. Grudzinski theorizes that it could have stowed away in a shipment of grain from the Lower 48. But his coworkers are skeptical.
“They say that in all the years they've worked here, that nothing has ever shown up alive in a truck,” said Grudzinski, “Because it takes so long to drive here, and there's no water available. But you never know. The other possibility is that somehow this came all the way from like Russia or Asia, where they're actually sort of native.”
However it got there, the bird has caused a sensation in the community, with people flying in from as far away as Anchorage to see it. Grudzinski says the barn turned into a “weird house sparrow zoo exhibit,” almost overnight.
Visitors have dubbed the bird: “Jack Sparrow,” but there’s a less-romantic reality about its presence this far north. House sparrows aren’t supposed to be in Alaska. Like her swashbuckling namesake, Jack is a bit of an outlaw. At the bird tally, there were a few whispered jokes about taking her out with a BB gun.
Michelle Sopoliga, a contributor to the Fairbanks bird count and a self-described “hardcore bird nerd,” said she has complicated feelings about the sparrow.
“It's a big deal for me, because it's the first time I've seen this species in the state of Alaska, so that's why I wanted to go see it,” Sopoliga said. “Although, it's annoying because it's an invasive species that we don't want. So, it's kind of a weird, like, double-edged sword.”
Alaska has a troubled history with invasive species — from Norwegian rats and green crabs to other birds, like the European starling. Still, some in the community doubt that one lost sparrow could cause much harm — if she even survives the winter. And that’s far from certain.
“The other day, when it was 30 below, it just huddled on a hay bale all day, and looked very unhappy,” Grudzinski said. “Probably the biggest danger is if some predator — a raven or something — picks it off just because they can recognize that it's unusual and not in its own habitat.”
Grudzinski said he’s still rooting for her a little bit, even if she has caused a ruckus at his job.