The return of the sparrow

Well its great to see the return of the House Sparrow in our garden. For years, statistics have shown a dramatic decline in the House Sparrow population over the last 30 years. Before a couple of years ago, the sparrow was a rare sight in our garden. Since then, we have seen more visit the garden. Today, its really nice to see a group of around 8 of them hogging the feeder perches for once.

I am thrilled to see at least 4 juvenile sparrows in the garden at the moment along with at least 4 adults. The youngsters have been so entertaining over the last week or so and have caught my attention plenty of times. Whilst I was filling up the feeders a few days ago, the sparrows couldn't resist the idea of feeding on the feeders. Whilst I was out, they allowed me to take a few shots. You can tell that the sparrow in the photo below is a juvenile because of its small size and yellow gape on the beak.

This is probably my favourite photo of the lot (see below). A female sparrow was feeding with her youngsters:
One of the juveniles seemed quite shy and sat in a nearby bush whilst I watched it.
Whilst the make was happy to watch at the top of a shrub.

As I was sat in our little office building, I captured the video below of a male House Sparrow feeding its youngsters. It was great to see them share a perch on the feeder. It did seem a bit strange that the juvenile was reliant on the parent to feed it, despite the fact that the seeds were just next to it. It made me think just how vulnerable these birds are.

It can be quite easy to attract more sparrows to your garden. It appears that the sparrows in our garden prefer seed mixes to the sunflower hearts. I now fill up at least one of our feeders with seed mixes for the House Sparrows. I suppose putting seed mixes out is just one way of attracting sparrows to your garden. Another way to help is to have plenty of water available for them. They sometimes visit our garden just so they can have a quick drink at the bird bath, and it isn't uncommon to see 4 or 5 of them having a wash too.

As many of you will know, you can buy House Sparrow terraced nestboxes with 3 seperate compartments. Unfortunately our box has never been used by House Sparrows, but hopefully, they will use it to nest next year. If you buy one, you may well find that a different bird uses one of the compartments to nest in, as Blue Tits did in ours last year! The sparrows that have visited our garden this year nested in the wall of a house a few doors away from us.

Elsewhere in the garden, birds are visiting our feeders in large numbers. A group of at least 7 Greenfinches have been around in our garden as well as plenty of Chaffinches, Starlings and Woodpigeons. One bird I haven't seen in a while, however is the Coal Tit. I imagine they are probably nesting far away from our garden. The Blue and Great Tits have been providing lots of entertainment though...

This is because we have now seen both Blue and Great Tit fledglings from nests in other gardens. We have also seen some very scruffy parents visiting the peanut feeder. Earlier on this year, when Blue Tits were choosing somewhere to nest, they declined our camera nestbox after visiting several times. They then built a nest in our non-camera nestbox, but moved out of that too, to nest in a garden nearby. It is amazing how fussy they are!

Last, but by no means least, I have also seen a couple of juvenile Starlings about. Not sure this is a good thing, judging by what other bloggers have said about the noise they make!