About twenty years ago many of my near neighbours began complaining that they no longer had sparrows in their gardens. I would boastfully proclaim that my sparrows were fine and doing well. Then, one year they weren't. For about fifteen years I had no sparrows and I missed them. They are incredibly gregarious, tribal birds. They chatter endlessly amongst themselves. They like to do everything in groups even queuing up to use the bird bath. They are at the same time cocky and suspicious. The garden has been diminished without them.
Nobody seems very sure why these once very common birds should have declined so suddenly - and to such an extent that they are now on the endangered list. It might be lack of the right kind of food for the chicks in gardens where too many chemical pesticides are used, it might be poisonous peanuts in bird feeders, it might be the pollution from diesel-fuelled vehicles. And possibly it is all these things.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, I saw, to my intense
delight, two sparrows pecking about on the patio.
They stayed throughout the summer and the following
winter and by next summer there were about six and
now they are so busy it's impossible to count them
but there must be a least twelve, using a golden
privet as their leisure centre and commandeering
the bird baths. I have three rather unsightly bird baths
grouped together where I can watch them from the
kitchen table.
One of this year's sparrows on the spiraea
The other birds that inhabit the garden as though it was their home
are blackbirds, robins, great tits, blue tits and wrens with visiting long-tailed tits, crows (which nest in a neighbour's ash tree), magpies and jays. There is the very occasional spotted woodpecker and occasionally a goldfinch and a goldcrest. Once a kestrel flew into the apple tree but flew off again straight away and I never saw it again. And, of course there are the parakeets which made their way to this part of London a few years ago. People say 'Oh but they are beautiful' - well, they may be but so are my sparrows and blackbirds.
I no longer hang up bird feeders, partly because the advice on keeping them washed to prevent disease is something I am unable to follow and partly because there are already plenty of good things to eat in the garden which is why I do not suffer from greenfly at all. I watch the blue tit carefully clear the plants of tiny pests. Its particular responsibilities near the house seem to be the olive tree and a small-flowered camellia.
Robin in a bird bath
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