Aggressive Sparrow

I haven't posted much lately because I was out of town visiting relatives for Thanksgiving. During the five days I was gone I did very little birding. On Sunday, however, Robin and I stopped in at a Brooklyn coffee bar for a caffeine fix where I was promptly harassed by a bird that refused to be ignored.

Cocoa Bar in Park Slope is a nice coffee/sweets shop with comfy chairs, some small tables in a back room, a backyard garden and a small butcher block counter. We were seated at the counter, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie, while we waited for our mugs of coffee. The weather outside was a balmy 70 degrees, so the manager had opened the window next to the counter. I had just broken off a small piece from the cookie when I noticed a House Sparrow fly to the opened window. Perched on the top edge of the window, he chirped when the barista arrived with our coffee. As we sipped our java the bold little sparrow flew from the window and onto the counter in front of me. I waved my hand hoping to dissuade him from my cookie. I love birds, but not when they are trying to steal my sweets. He flew back to the window and I thought that would be it. It wasn't ...

About ten seconds later he was back. I blocked his path to my plate, so he bit my finger. I made a little wall out of my two hands and he tried to jump over them. I picked him up (he didn't like that) and aimed him towards the window. He flew to the window, but came back a moment later. Pointing at the sparrow and explaining that I wouldn't be sharing my crumbs only succeeded in having him bite my index finger. Two women seated to our right seemed to really be enjoying the show and snapped photos with their smartphones. When we finished our cookie and the plate was cleared, the belligerent little bird became slightly less pushy. Several other birds called from a privet in the backyard and he eventually took off with his gang of feathered hoodlums. I suspect that they flew down the avenue to mug customers at Starbucks.