THE ORNITHOLOGIST PETE DUNN calls Passer domesticus the “Sidewalk Sparrow.” Before 1850, there were no house sparrows in North America. Today there are millions. You have to hand it to them. The first sixteen birds said to have been introduced to Brooklyn in 1851 to control a plague of moths may not have taken immediately to the New World, but another bigger shipment imported from England the following year did, and in a big way.
