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House Sparrow Renaissance? (1 Viewer)

S

Sancho

Well-known member
Europe
On the housing estate where I live, at the southern edge of the Dublin sprawl, I´ve only seen one house sparrow in 16 years (until this Spring), a bedraggled male that came to my garden once. There are a few local colonies, the closest being on another housing estate about half a mile away.
In recent weeks a group have taken up residence around some local gardens, and today one appeared on my street. They frequent, like all colonies in the area, ragged, fairly thick garden hedges between five and twelve feet high, and chirp largely from cover.
It´s great to see them moving in, but I can´t see anything that´s changed in the environment. All the houses around have PVC fascias and soffits, no nest-holes I can see, so maybe these birds are nesting in garden hedges. Perhaps a lot more people are feeding birds in the garden, or perhaps the hedges have reached a level that the sparrows like. I´ve no idea.
Has anyone else noticed a resurgence in their locality?
 
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Hi Sancho,

I've only been in my new house for 10 months. In that time I've seen one House sparrow - summer last year. They are common enough not far away, though. I hope there will be a comeback (if they ever did occur as a resident species).

H
 
It is not well defined in my area. While I have seen a small flock right in front of my building in a bush (my window faces the back of building block so it is like a completely different locality) with male(s) chirping, it seems that they flew there on that particular occasion (maybe someone dropped some suitable food midway and they saw it and flew along the park) and then went back a few hundred meters to the green market where they do occur year round. I also cannot see kestrel or hear black redstart from my window (but have blackcap and nightingale and scops owl as it is facing the woods).
 
They are ubiquitous in Paderborn, even nesting on my roof. I spotted a male with nesting material in a hedge at the edge of the field next to my house yesterday. I wonder if it because of the mild winter that they are so numerous this year?
 
Are the diminishing numbers of house sparrow a British thing?We have plenty down here in the towns and in the country.Nobody can have more birds of prey in the skies than us in southern Spain so that cannot be the problem,it would be interesting to hear other´s views from around Europe....Eddy
 
Not sure, Eddy. Yes, I notice when in Spain that they´re doing well. It´s been discussed before on BF; I think they´ve declined in towns and cities across UK and IRL, and localised suburban colonies also seem to behave in a more furtive way than I remember as a kid. Some guy was peddling a theory that it was all to do with Sparrowhawks, which seems odd, as other Sprawk prey didn´t decline in the same way, and I don´t even think sparrows were a major diet ingredient of Sprawks - never saw one take a house sparrow, but saw them take plenty of blackbirds, etc. In any case, the local resurgence in my area is happening in an area with plenty of local Sprawks, and as you say, Spain is raptor-central. Just thinking aloud here, don´t want to ignite another row.
Another random observation - on an extended trip to China two years ago, it seemed that the default sparrow everywhere, in towns, cities, villages and the countryside, was the Tree Sparrow, even in central Beijing! Odd really, considering it´s a rural bird here.
 
eddy the eagle said:
Are the diminishing numbers of house sparrow a British thing?
Click to expand...
We have a strong folk opinion that HS are on decline. I took special care to notice where I see them, and it seems they are present in many places but they are not so strongly "in your face" as I remember from my childhood - they don't jump around you when you sit in a park (we used to feed them crumbs and sandwich leftovers), but instead you see small parties of brown birds inside and below the bushes, not really interacting with humans. The feral pigeons still behave the old way.
 
Sancho said:
Another random observation - on an extended trip to China two years ago, it seemed that the default sparrow everywhere, in towns, cities, villages and the countryside, was the Tree Sparrow, even in central Beijing! Odd really, considering it´s a rural bird here.
Click to expand...

I've actually had a birding tour guide call them "The trash bird of Asia." Speaking from personal experience, they're common in Singapore, Taiwan, and S. Korea, as well as China.
 
House sparrow

Andy Hurley said:
They are ubiquitous in Paderborn, even nesting on my roof. I spotted a male with nesting material in a hedge at the edge of the field next to my house yesterday. I wonder if it because of the mild winter that they are so numerous this year?
Click to expand...
I,m going back sometime now but i do remember a few pairs of house sparrows with built nests I think in "hawthorn" hedges They were quite close together and this was at twycross zoo have never witnessed it before since (just on note does the house sparrow belong
To The weaver bird family) I do remember their nests quite untidy structures
Looked like straw and grasses from the outside with a hole in the side where
they went inside probabily lined with feathers if they were handy, They love
To get under The roof tiles where the mortar has broken free I saw a female
Enter such a place today.
 
Where I live in Corby, Northants sparrows have a rather patchy distribution though I'm lucky enough to have them nesting in my gutters. We too have a healthy population of sparrowhawks so I don't think that this is a factor in their decrease. Perhaps a mild winter and the number of people feeding birds leads to a higher survival rate and leads them to find new territories nearby.
 
Hi Sancho, I've four swift boxes up at the side of the house now. Three of the boxes have house sparrows nesting in them whilst the fourth has starlings nesting even though the diameter of the entrance was supposed to be too small for starlings to get in.

I don't mind though as the estate I live in doesnt have much nesting opportunities.

Regards Gerard.
 
I'm currently visiting an old rugby mate in Diss (Norfolk), he has no shortage of House Sparrow in his garden.
Scilly always seems to have a good number of the little rascals all over the islands.
 
Scratch what I said, it looks like the starlings have evicted the house sparrows from what I saw this morning. Starlings are occupying all the nest boxes now.

Regards Gerard.
 
Paid more attention yesterday. Yes, definitively change in behavior from what I remember. House Sparrows used to have that stiff two-legged hop around your feet and around pigeons (like a clockwork toy, not laborous like Rockhopper Penguins). Now they basically fly from point A to point B.
 
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