Duelling Birds

So there's a bloke who stands on the prom in Nice feeding the passing birds, who eat right out of his hand. He mostly gets pigeons but this evening when I spotted him he was trying to coax a sparrow onto his hand for a titbit, at the same time trying to wave the pigeons away so that the little fella could have a nibble. Poor sparrow lasted about 10 seconds before bully-boy pigeon flew in to scare him away...