Masses of sparrows here in West London, Zero...never fear! Lots of different tits (too hot and tired to make a joke), magpies, parrots, pigeons, doves, robins, crows, terns. There were goldfinches a couple of weeks back but haven't seen them again.
I get load of sparrows nesting in the ivy. We always have nesting robins too. We don't see any thrushes but occasionally get starlings. Blue tits, blackbirds and goldfinches are regular visitors. Wish the magpies would stay away though.
There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions - They're two a penny, far too many there must be. There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions - But God knows every one and God knows me.
I can't imagine that being written now! There's no shortage in my bit of London - many a bush full of them making a racket, and always lots around making the most of my feeders and pond. But my Dad used to spend hours fashioning feeders that would keep them out and let the tits in, and I do remember enormous numbers of them when I was a child, so however many there still are, numbers have clearly decreased.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
I'm sure there are many two a penny pests now. That's why I would never use weedkillers or nematodes. I want to keep the numbers down, but I don't want to destroy a whole species. I don't want slugs to eat my plants, but I don't want them to be extinct either.
If you feed them, they come. When we moved into our ex-farmhouse in Belgium I immediately hung up bird feeders but it took a couple of years before the birds recognised them as such as our predecessors never fed birds. We ended up with a whole colony of sparrows in one set of eaves and masses of tits and nesting locally.
They used our inherited conifer hedge as a conference centre until our hawthorn hedge grew big enough. Feeding adult birds all year means they can raise more broods and increase the population. Not spraying plants means they have grubs to feed their young. We left a full set of filled feeders to give the new owners the hint.
Same thing with this old farmhouse but now we have regular sparrows, tits and chaffinches and others and sparrows nesting in the donkey shed as well as above our bedroom and landing windows. Noisy but good to see.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
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There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions -
They're two a penny, far too many there must be.
There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions -
But God knows every one and God knows me.
I can't imagine that being written now! There's no shortage in my bit of London - many a bush full of them making a racket, and always lots around making the most of my feeders and pond. But my Dad used to spend hours fashioning feeders that would keep them out and let the tits in, and I do remember enormous numbers of them when I was a child, so however many there still are, numbers have clearly decreased.
They used our inherited conifer hedge as a conference centre until our hawthorn hedge grew big enough. Feeding adult birds all year means they can raise more broods and increase the population. Not spraying plants means they have grubs to feed their young. We left a full set of filled feeders to give the new owners the hint.
Same thing with this old farmhouse but now we have regular sparrows, tits and chaffinches and others and sparrows nesting in the donkey shed as well as above our bedroom and landing windows. Noisy but good to see.