Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 07:41:19 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: Salt Lick for Sparrows? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/13/2002 4:06:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, janet@TWOCROWS.COM writes: > half a dozen House Sparrows clinging to a vertical brick wall and apparently > busily obtaining something from its surface. It reminded me of watching > squirrels lick at an exposed masonry foundation to get the salts that have > leached out. Does that seem a likely explanation here? Janet, What you witnessed is "mortar feeding", whereby the birds, usually members of the weaver finch family, will cling to vertical masonry walls while shuffling their feet along in a sort of stilted locomotion trying to free any clinging insects and/or larva from the surface for the purpose of feeding. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it (unless Steve Huy can come up with something more original)! Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================