Meet the House Sparrows
House sparrows are small, sociable birds whose busy chatter can often be heard bursting from hedges and bushes. Their ability to eat a range of seeds and scraps has enabled them to spread around the world. Even so, this once commonplace bird is now disappearing from our cities, with an estimated 71% lost from London since 1995.
What they need
- Because house sparrows are such sociable birds they need dense, bushy vegetation for their combined offer of communal perches and cover from predators hunting above and below.
- This uber social nature also affects how populations spread, or become fragmented and die out. They’ll happily hop from bush to bush but they won’t stray beyond the sound of other sparrows so different populations need connecting stepping stones of bushy cover to interbreed and ensure genetic diversity.
- Their natural diet is mainly seeds and grains with insects taken from April to August to feed their young.
- Clean water is essential, especially during hot weather when they need to stay hydrated and bathe to maintain their plumage.
What you can do to help
- One of the best things you can do for house sparrows is to conserve hedges and shrubs, if you’re lucky enough to have them. Where these have been removed, mostly from front gardens, sparrows have lost crucial roosting sites and the street has become a quieter, sadder place as a result. If you have the chance, plant especially native seed and fruit bearing hedges and shrubs to help bring back the joy of sparrow chatter.
- They’ll happily inhabit appropiately sized nest boxes. As they’re so communal, you might want to try a ‘sparrow hotel’ – several nest boxes in one. They’ll also nest in dense bushes, creepers and hedges – another reason to get planting!
- Create bird-friendly areas with plants that produce seeds and attract insects, providing a natural food source for house sparrows.
- Set up bird feeders containing appropriate seeds and grains, and put up a bird bath or pond with a beach area for bathing. From April to August leave mealworms on your bird feeder for them to feed their to young. Mealworms can be live or dried, but if dried do soak them first because the young depend on moist prey to for their water intake.
- Avoid using pesticides and herbicides which harm house sparrows and their invertebrate prey.
Fascinating facts
- House sparrows typically breed in colonies, with multiple pairs nesting close to each other. They may produce several broods of chicks each breeding season, if there are enough nesting sites and food sources.
- Sparrows have associated with humans since the dawn of agriculture in the Neolithic period, about 11 thousand years ago. Research shows that they’ve evolved over that time to make the most of the farmed environment, for example by becoming better adapted to digesting starch.
