On the Wildside: Spare a thought for the Cockney sparrow

Its cousin, the very pretty tree sparrow, is now virtually extinct across our region. Yet, the house sparrow was once so abundant on farmland, and a problem in terms of damage to gain crops and stores, that small children were employed as sparrow catchers to try and keep the population down.

This was only a hundred years ago which is the bat of an eye in terms of environmental history. Losses of one-time abundant birds serve as a barometer for human impacts on the rest of nature and a shot across the bows for our own ecological future. So, how come these once superabundant birds have declined so much that they are either extinct or threatened?

There have been some rather wacky explanations proposed, concerning either mobile telephone use or car fumes. However, the realistic explanations are more simple and straightforward.

Towns, cities, and farms were formerly powered by animals with heavy horses and oxen, and these animals were fed on hay and grain too. Horses pulling carts on the streets of Sheffield for example, would have nose-bags full of grain, which spilled wherever they went. Add to that, the often tumbledown and ramshackle nature of many buildings providing amble spaces and places for nesting sparrows, and you can see why they were so numerous.

Today we are just too tidy and clean for them to thrive, and their numbers have plummeted. We can help offset the problems by providing artificial nest-boxes, if for example you have a new roof, which combined with bird-feeders in the garden does make a difference. However, it is also important to consider the sparrows when you are pruning dense hedges and shrubs, because these are often great sites for roosting sparrows and also for them gathering in communal, twittering, daytime flocks. If these sites are lost, then so are the sparrows.

Professor Ian D. Rotherham, researcher, writer & broadcaster on wildlife & environmental issues, is contactable on [email protected]; follow Ian’s blog (https://ianswalkonthewildside.wordpress.com/) and Twitter @IanThewildside