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Talkback: House sparrows
happymarion
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in Talkback
In the eighties I used to stop counting at 20 when the sparrows descended on my garden. The wild patch og groud at the back of my garden was bought and tidied up by my neighbour. Loss of habitat meant loss of sparrows till about three tears ago. One arrived on its own and so far three have been feeding regularly with my robin, pair of blackbirds, pair of bramblings, three bluetits and one chaffinch. I have erected a birdbox and their are lots of hedges and a spinney in my garden so I hope to see my count increasing year by year.
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Loads of sparrows in our garden, they gobble up nearly all the birdfood I put out, even the fat balls, they're certainly not dying out here! Also bluetits, great tits, the odd robin, several blackbirds, occasional chaffinch and a fortnight ago dozens of starlings on their way back up north. The sparrows nest in every opening they can find under the roof and particularly in the virginia creeper growing over our shed. Next door neighbour has fitted special nesting boxes for swifts under the eaves. They come back every year almost on the same date. Love watching them swooping around endlessly, don't know where they get the strength from! The other day our neighbour watched a heron help himself to one of our goldfish. Luckily we have too many of them so we don't begrudge him the occasional one.
We have a heron who must have found fish in neighbours pond as see it daily
Lots of robins, blackbirds , bluetits, a wren and a woodpecker , finches and crows
Never saw a house sparrow here for the first 20 odd years after I arrived. A couple appeared about three years ago and today I saw 4 or 5 in the garden. I'm glad they've arrived but was miffed to find that my yellow crocus flowers had been devoured. Pretty sure it was the spadgers, they always ate my mum's yellow crocuses.
Don't talk to me about crows, they sit on neighbours roof and screech their heads off. The noise goes right through you!
In fact they've become such a plague eating all the grain here that farmers are getting permission to shoot them. In a way I feel sorry for them, they can't help the way they are, can they?
Crow pie yum yum yum yum
Hugh whittingstall he eats slugs and snails too .
Derek
Thanks for all your comments! Interesting to see lots of different views of the house sparrow. I've never seen one in my garden.
Kate