2021. The diet of a sparrow
December 13, 2021
Open gallery
Who knew sparrows had such a wide diet? No wonder they are such good invaders.
by Robert Olsen
Following an unfortunate start to our initial project, we became curious about birds and their diet. We quickly were able to acquire five different types of mixed seeds and bird feeders for each and quickly got to work. We quickly set up our feeders outside the Purchase College humanities building and waited for the birds to enjoy their feast. As we waited, we noticed that certain seeds were preferred over other, such as the sunflower seeds and corn. As we continued replicating our experiment, we noticed that these seeds were repeatedly being favored over the others. This actually differed from our hypothesis which was that millet would be most popular because it is not only the main ingredient in mixed seed but the smallest size which would presumably be easier for the sparrows to consume.