What’s so special about House Sparrows?
Walking home from work this evening, I was struck by the rich numbers of House Sparrows I saw on the way. Now I know the humble House Sparrow has come top of the Big Garden Birdwatch this year, which, on one hand is clearly good news, but the worrying fact remains, this bird is collectively – across the UK and chunks of the world – in serious decline. In fact, The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) put it on its Red List back in 2002. 50 odd years ago, the sparrow population was recorded at around 10 million. By the mid 70’s it was approximately 25 million but after that, it fell out of the sky and crashed during the 1990’s leaving the population by 2000 down by 65%. So what has done this little fellow in? There are of course a number of valid theories including the moderisiation of farming through more effective grain storage, tighter housing of livestock and feed and cereal hygiene that requires farm building to be watertight or rather, 'sparrow-tight' re...