The most famous dead sparrow in the history of cricket will fly again this week — for the first time since it was killed in a match at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1936. The bird, now well-rested, will pay a celebrity visit to the Netherlands.
A star is reborn and airborne
It will star in “The Grand House Sparrow Exhibition” at the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The exhibit, which opens on November 14, covers all aspects of the life history of the world?s best-known bird species and its relationship with man. Stuffed sparrows from collections around the globe were flown in for the event, but one sparrow is yet to come.
The famous Cricket-ball Sparrow, owned by the museum of the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord?s Cricket Ground, one of that museum’s most valued trophies, is too vulnerable to be shipped by ordinary mail. It has to be hand-carried from Lord?s in London to Rotterdam. Kees Moeliker, curator of birds at the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, will do the honors. Moeliker, who also personally couriered an historic sparrow from New York to the Netherlands, has prepared a tailor-made transportation case for the MCC Sparrow, to rule out any risk of damage. The sparrow has never left the museum at Lord?s before.
For sparrows, especially dead sparrows, travel by airplane is expensive. VLM Airlines, in a gesture of good will to cricketers and sparrow-lovers everywhere, is sponsoring the MCC sparrow’s flight, which will occur on Thursday November 9 (from London City airport to Rotterdam Airport).
Moeliker will be in the MCC Museum around noon (12.00h) to pack the sparrow.
Famous sparrows
The MCC sparrow was the unfortunate casualty of a ball bowled by Jehangir Khan on July 3, 1936 during a match at Lord?s between MCC and Cambridge University. The sparrow – mounted on the ball that killed it – will feature in the Wall of Fame of The Grand House Sparrow Exhibition. It will co-star with another celebrity dead sparrow: the renowned “Domino Sparrow” that was shot in the Netherlands a year ago because it disturbed a television company’s attempt at a world record in domino toppling. The bird flew in through a window and knocked over 23,000 dominos just a few days before the grand domino-toppling event was to be televised live in 11 countries. The death of this now-immortal bird caused worldwide outrage, and so did the outrage itself. The Natural History Museum Rotterdam managed to obtain the cadaver of this famous sparrow from Dutch national authorities, and preserved it – mounted on top of a box of dominos.
Other famous sparrows that will star in Rotterdam include the first-ever collected House Sparrow in the United States that is still kept in the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1875, offspring of the earliest immigrant sparrows), and the ‘Freedom Sparrow’ from the Australian Museum in Sydney. This juvenile sparrow boarded PanAm flight 811 from Los Angeles to Sydney on July 4 (Independence Day!), 1981; upon arrival in Sydney it was killed immediately by Australian Quarantine and Inspection authorities.