House Sparrow

Doesn't everybody know what a House Sparrow looks and sounds like? Well, hold that image and that familiar chirping sound, because at current rates this ever present bird of our streets, parks, hedgerows and farms is another old favourite in trouble, and will potentially disappear in the next 25 years if nothing is done about it soon. Alarmist? exaggerated? well possibly, but we need to keep this bird at the foremost of our minds and take action now, if we are to not lose this popular and often taken for granted cockney favourite. The plight of House Sparrow has been well publicised in recent years with numbers thought to have plummeted nationally by up to 71% between 1977 and 2008 - now there's a statistic which should set off alarm bells.

It's not possible to point out the exact reason for their decline in urbanised areas like our gardens and parks, but extensive research in the last 10 years has given one or two indicators why this might be.

• Reduction in the availability of favoured food, either for adults or chicks or both.
• Increased levels of pollution.
• Loss of suitable nesting sites.
• Increased prevalence of disease.
• Increased levels of predation.

In three of the five bullet points above we could at least try to assist the House Sparrow, and with all of our concerted efforts we may not reverse the decline but could stabilise existing numbers in urbanised areas for future generations - below is my 3 point basic action plan in helping the House Sparrow.

• We should all continue to feed House Sparrows by ensuring our seed feeders are topped up not just in the winter months but right through the important spring and summer breeding months - I would recommend seeds over bread, which is far more nutritional for the adult birds and will make up some of the diet of the young birds along with the much needed aphids, insects and caterpillars.
• Think twice about using your car, reducing your number of car journeys - do you really need to jump into the car to collect the daily newspaper or to collect one or two grocery items which you may have run out of at home? It's far healthier for you and better for the environment to walk to shops when possible, or wait a little longer for your missing groceries on your next big shop. If we all reduced our car journeys by 10% to 15% this could make a significant impact on pollution levels in our towns and cities.
• Sparrows are communal nesting birds and love to nest in small groups on our houses under the eaves or guttering, between slipped tiles on the roofs in older Edwardian/Victorian houses but sadly these types of properties are few and far between and modern houses and the materials and methods of constructing new houses has reduced many nesting opportunities - therefore why not invest or make a Sparrow terraced nest box for your house? Even now it's not too late to put up a nest box and if it's unsuccessful this year, there is always next year. These can be purchased directly from the RSPB shop, available on this link.

 http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/rspb-sparrow-terrace-nestbox.html

Male House Sparrow - Seed feeding 

Female House Sparrow - Seed feeding

I am very fortunate to have House Sparrows nesting in my street but I'm lucky the street I live in is a row of Edwardian houses, perfect breeding grounds for Sparrows and there is a small population of around a dozen birds in my area, they will often come to the birds feeders in my back garden to eat the seeds. The thought of losing the sound of chirping Sparrows in the morning or the noise of three or four birds tussling and squabbling over a mate in the breeding season would be a travesty and a real loss if this sound were to ever fall silent.