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Produce => Wildlife forum => Topic started by: Dan 2 on February 08, 2006, 19:17:16
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What do you think, persoanlly we continue to have loads! Dan :-)
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I don't think there's any doubt that there are fewer of them across the country, theough they're still numerous in many areas. One possible partial explanation (I don't think it's something that simple) is the removal or renovation of old buildings, leaving them with fewer potantial nest sites.
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I'm lucky to see a sparrow a week. Shame I can't say the same for pesky wood pigeons....
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When we first moved here (SW London) 20+ years ago we used to get great flocks of sparrows. They gradually declined until we saw very few. I would now say that over the past 2-3 years or so they seem to be on the increase again which I am really pleased about as I've always liked them.
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I'm quite sure that throughout the country sparrow numbers are going down, as the RSPB say they are, and I think they know what they're talking about! However, we had no sparrows at all when we moved here - and after 5 years of gardening organically we now get them regularly, though not in very large numbers. At first they only came in the summer, to eat the greenfly on our roses, but now we are starting to see them all year round. This makes me think that perhaps one of the reasons numbers of sparrows are depleting is because humans are using more and more chemicals to kill pests instead of leaving it to nature.
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Their numbers are certainly dwindling here in north London. I 'garden for wildlife' but these days, like others have said, I only get the odd one or two now. It's sad. :(
g xx
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Some years ago, we had loads of sparrows, now we are lucky to see two or three on our feeders. We seem to have been taken over by finches in our part of Hertfordshire.
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Sparrows declined when farmers started planting their cereal crops in the autumn, straight after the harvest. Before that, the fields were left barren all winter and many birds including sparrows, could then feed on the grain left behind. I have quite a community of sparrows in my garden and they feed on the grain that is put out for the chickens. There are nest boxes on the market that cater for sparrows. They are terraced as the birds like to be near each other. Here is a picture of one.
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They used to be the commonest birds in our garden now we have tits, robins, greenfinches, blackbirds, wrens and many more but only rarely see sparrows.
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Depletion! they're breeding like rabbits in my roof - I tried putting chicken wire across the gaps after the last brood fledged to encourage them into my neighbours roof ahead of starting a loft conversion, but the blighters just hung onto the chicken wire and hauled it out again. Then they added insult to injury by turfing out clods of insulation!. They sit on the rone above my home office window and laugh at me, dance little dances to taunt me, cr@p on my washing, nibble the buds on my spring shrubs, and breed even more little sparrows.
( do I sound a bit manic??)
Sadly, they will have to be rehoused as the roof is getting "done" this month and the straw and assorted nesting stuff ( about a bin liner full) will have to go ( talk about a fire hazard), though being fair, their droppings are small beer compared to the horsehair plaster lining that's fallen off and 120 years of soot.
Like the terraced nesting box. I already have a selection of ordinary ones for the roofers to put up while the scaffolding is there - will see if I can get one or two. Cos actually, I'd miss them if they weren't around, and it is my fault for feeding them all year, even if they do intimidate me from the feeder table if I let it run out. Hmm, if there were hoodies for sparrows, this bunch would be wearing them.
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I have one of them Terraced nesting boxes. They are OK had one lot of sparrows nesting in there about 3 years ago. I read somewhere that the Terraced nesting boxes havent been the success they thought they would be. I do get the occasional House Sparrow feeding along with the Finches but I see them in great numbers in the village. They will return to my garden at breeding time hopefully. It is the TREE Sparrows which have reduced in great numbers, more than the House Sparrow, but they are certainly not as numerous as they were years ago.
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When we first moved here (SW London) 20+ years ago we used to get great flocks of sparrows. They gradually declined until we saw very few. I would now say that over the past 2-3 years or so they seem to be on the increase again which I am really pleased about as I've always liked them.
Same here, they are on their way back.
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When we moved here there weren't many but now that I feed them all year we have a large colony. They nest in the eaves of our roof, sliding in between the roof and the wall. We've had to block off the corner of the roof triangle to give them privacy and security and stop babies fledging into our attic instead of out into the big wide world.
Here in Belgium numbers in both town and country have been declining for some years but I garden organically and the farmers are using fewer really nasty chemicals so around me both sparrows and raptors are doing well. We have buzzards and sparrow hawks and I occasionally hear tawny owls hooting but I haven't seen any little owls for a few years.
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We always had lots of sparrows in our garden - right until last year. Now there are hardly any.
We are still overrun with starlings though.
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I have quite a lot in my garden aswell as the old blackbirds, starlings e.t.c We get very few robins, blue tits e.t.c Never Mind! I will have to travel to see them then!
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in a busy hour, i've got up to 15 sparrows at one time, and although the sun was out today no tits at all and blue, great and coal usually turn up. had a couple of starlings though which i don't often see.
daddy black bird hangs around all day and is usually accompanied by a "very smooth brown with no obvious markings and brown bill" bird - Mrs ?
when i lived in south london (up until a couple of years ago) , it was noticeably quiet - hardly any sparrows at all but i'm pleased as punch to have them in my garden now even though the dawn chorus can be deafening (which makes me wonder where all the others are hiding).
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Oh oh
NO!!!!
Too much detail
o.
More sparrows on the way.
I'm gonna have to move my home office, I can't take this sort of thing before the 9pm watershed.
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Remember, don't confuse a sparrow with a dunnock!
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i think i have already ??? ....... pictures and binoculars at the ready in the morning.
edited to include pic of Mr Dunnock (I think) ::)
(http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/8434/dunnock2ir.jpg)
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We have lots in our part of Essex, so many that at our local Asda, they nest and roost in the roof of the huge trolly bay. The lovely outcome of this is, they poop all over the trolleys! Nice!! They are great cleaners tho and tidy the carpark of all spilt food and the rubbish that the new McDonalds is creating. We have them in the garden in great numbers, along with t*ts, wrens, robbins, starlings, thrushes, and most noticeably at the moment, lots of gorgeous blackbirds. Nope, for me, there seem to be as many sparrows around here as ever.
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Hi, I recorded a maximum of 4-House Sparrows in our garden whilst completing the recent RSPB bird count. The total should have been more (5 last year), but there is a very active local Sparrowhawk, and it visited the garden twice during the morning when I did the count.
I also read the theory (in the papers etc) this week that patios and evergreen shrubs are responsible for the decline - well, I have both, but also deciduous trees and shrubs, a bird table adjacent to the patio, and a feeder in one of the evergreen trees. So I'm not sure that anyone has yet hit the nail on the head for the true cause of the decline - it certainly doesn't seem to be happening here.
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That's hard to believe; the total area covered with patios must ber pretty small, and as for evergreens, every town I've lived in has had loads of laurels and rhododendrons which probably go back to Victorian times.
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Where I grew up, there used to be hundreds of sparrows. My dad's bird table used to be covered with them every morning, waiting for him to put the seed out. Then they vanished. His theory is that they started to go from our particular garden when the dog died, as the garden was then safe haven for cats again, but they just aren't _anywhere_ round there. You can't hear the cheeping, and this is 100yd from open fields, so I think it's a larger problem. Now sparrowhawks I can believe. One family needs 10 young birds a day so the number of young sparrows remaining to breed the following year would plummet if there's a hawk nest nearby. And sparrowhawks are a protected species, so we can't do much to dissuade them!!
moonbells
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Funnily enough sparrow numbers are down in Belgian towns and it is thought that general pollution and/or garden chemicals may be the culprits. I have a growing colony of regulars who live here. My garden is in the middle of the countryside and pesticide use has been reduced in recent years. I also have a long set of eaves where they can nest in peace and I feed them all year round. Over the road at the equestrian farm, there is also a large population with safe nesting sites in the farm buildings, no chemicals on the horse pastures and plenty of fallen grain under the horse-feed silo which is full of oats and barley.
We have 3 cats but very few casualties as I feed the birds up high, out of reach and we also have sparrowhawks, buzzards and kestrels. They do occasionally swoop but there is good shrub cover near the feeders and plenty of birds on lookout duty so again, no casualties that I have seen so far. The horsey farm has loads of cats on mouse and rat duty but still manages to keep its sparrows and blackbirds and red squirrels........
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Obbelix it sounds like Le paradis terrestre chez toi!
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I don't believe the sparrowhawk theory as house sparrows are typically a bird of urban areas, where there aren't that many sparrowhawks. They'd get some while they were out on the fields, but that's typically in winter.
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HI Grawc - It's pretty good except that winter can seem to last for ever. We had snow again on Sunday and it's forecast to persist down tomorrow with strong winds to add to the fun till the weekend. I have two garden activities at the moment - trips to the compost heaps when the kitchen compost pot is full and trips to the bird feeders.
This is the one time of year I have respectable nails. I'm going to have to sneak out and see if I can find one of those wee plastic greenhouse/cold frames so I can sow some seeds or take some cuttings or something.
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We certainly don't have a sparrow shortage here....despite two patios! We do back onto open farmland and have lots of trees though, but you can see sparrows all round the village, even foraging along the high street. They don't fly away when you walk past.
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Well, on the whole it seems that the humble sparrow hasn't lost a place in our hearts and gardens! Keep in gardening and birdwatching! Dan :-)
p.s- Bill Oddie is on tonight at 8:00!
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I love my little sparrows - we have lots of them, and they're so cheerful. Especially when they bathe in the pond's waterfall.
I still can't really tell the difference between dunnocks and female house sparrows, though..
Melanie
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p.s- I'll keep the voting open!
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Well, on the whole it seems that the humble sparrow hasn't lost a place in our hearts and gardens! Keep in gardening and birdwatching! Dan :-)
p.s- Bill Oddie is on tonight at 8:00!
i forgot which thread you mentioned this on but thanks for reminding me to watch Bill, Dan. It was lovely watching all the wee wildlife thingies. i've probably got a patch somewhere like but but never get time to go out and find it. Still, i've got my own wee patch here which i hope will get busier over time.
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Thats ok MrsKp ;) I really enjoyed Tuesdays program, thought it was very good!