So timid

[Colin Miles]

Over the last few days some House Sparrows have at last ventured into the edges of our garden and 1 'bold' male actually took a sunflower seed from our bird feeder! We have been here 3 years and it has taken this long for this to happen.

What a contrast to the way it used to be. 20 years ago we used to have to put netting over the shed entrance where we kept out rabbit to keep the Sparrows out. The mothers used to line the babies up on the top ready to swarm in like locusts! Then, a few years later it suddenly changed and the only Sparrows we saw were down the bottom garden - timid, quiet beasties!

What happened? Genetic drift, disease, lack of some food or nesting places? Or was it as someone suggested to me, that when the population falls below a certain level, they lose their sociability and boldness?

[pongeroon]

Hello Colin,

That is interesting, I wish I knew the answer. Now I think about it, there are one or two in the garden occasionally, but I don't recall seeing cheery gangs of sparrows for a long time.

[alan refail]

Colin

Up in Gwynedd we have seen the opposite - no significant number of sparrows for years, then hundreds, and they are certainly not timid.

[Johnboy]

Hi Colin,
Here we used to have masses House Sparrows and then about 15 years ago they simply upped and left. Three yeas ago a pair came back and then last year there were about ten pairs in the barns and then came 'Deluge Friday' and they all disappeared again not to be seen until the other week and now we are back to as it was the 15 years ago. It seems to be following some sort of pattern but what that is I'm afraid I do not know. There is nothing timid about the hooligans that are here now.
What we do not get are Starlings. Oh we get the flocks of juveniles from the first rearing but they come in, remove Daddy Longlegs and their grubs, and then disappear after a couple of days. No nesting birds though.
JB.

[Chantal]

I think all the missing sparrows are living in our garden. We have hundreds, although this could be because there are trees with clematis and other large shrubs running along the boundary with our neighbours; there's lots of cover for them to hide from the sparrow hawk. We also back on to the Great Central nature reserve.

As for the racket they make, there's times you can't hear yourself think! :roll

Oh and there's nothing timid about them, one landed on my head a couple of years back

[Colin Miles]

I actually have something of a love/hate relationship with Sparrows. I missed them when they disappeared then when I go to somewhere they are in the numbers I used to experience and hear their constant chirruping I think that perhaps it is best they have become timid. If they could only learn to sing instead of being tone-deaf!

[Monika]

As you will know, there is a national downturn of house sparrow, but it seems that there are great local variations. We certainly have fewer house sparrows in the village and my theory is that farms are much cleaner and tidier than they used to be (no spilt feed stuffs about) and, at least in our area, more and more farms are being turned into private houses.

[Primrose]

I don't know the answer Colin, but we hardly ever see any sparrows round here these days, which is sad because I think they're rather charming little birds and the greenfinches have all but disappeared too. But we do have a sparrowhawk who visits the area increasingly regularly and I'm wondering whether there is any connection. Plus houses are increasingly using plastic eaves and soffits and their former roosting spaces are no longer available.

[Colin Miles]

I first noticed the 'crash' in an essentially urban area, so I don't think it has anything to do with farming practices. We also have a local sparrowhawk, but I rather doubt that Sparrows are that knowing. Another thought has just occurred to me. I think the first crash started around the time Collared Doves started appearing on the scene. Maybe they competed or merely brought trici...monias with them - can't remember exact name.

[Johnboy]

Hi Colin,
I do not believe the statistics about Sparrows and I think they have been treated as sedentary birds which just us few are proving this is not the case.
They may well be missing from where they have traditionally been recorded but I feel that all in all there are still the same amount but not in the same places.
Most of the statistics are compiled by the RSPB bird watch which, in my humble opinion, is not really the best of surveys.
JB.

[Weed]

When I was first married we always had flocks of sparrows in the garden...put out a piece of bread and it disappeared in seconds

We hardly see any these days, mores the pity..... I put it down to several factors.... less trees and shrubs in peoples gardens, a large increase in the cat population and also increasing visits from magpies who raid nests

[madasafish]

Our local sparrowhawk like sparrows..leaves feathers on the lawn.
(and pigeons and doves and blackbirds).
Then there is the merlin...

The sparrows nest in the eaves. We have hawthorn hedges and they hop happily all day in and out of that.

Bit noisy in spring with young.