There was a time when sparrows, mainly House Sparrows were everywhere in their hundreds. I always remember seeing them as a kid the bird we saw most often in the garden I was reading that something happened during the 70s and early 80s and Sparrows almost disappeared. We heard a story once about a farm which had had a store of dressed wheat reading for sowing in a big shed and one day someone opened the doors and found the floor completely covered with dead sparrows. Something in the seed dressing (that's what seeds are coated in to protect them from pests) had killed them all. This might be a strange story with no truth in it - who knows?
I had a look in a book I have to see what the illustration was for Sparrows, and this is it. The book says: 'No bird divides the experience of old from young as dramatically as the House Sparrow. There was a bounty of halfpenny a bird in the Second Word War, so damaging to food supplies were it's numbers considered'. Now, especially in town, House Sparrow numbers have plummeted, but since around 2010 numbers have been slowly recovering and they were the bird most seen in RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.
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Sparrows began declining after we got mobile phone towers set up. These towers transmit signals which play with the mind of little sparrows. Sadly, it is almost their extinction.
Sparrows were my favourite bird for some reason. I called them Golden Birds even though never cared for their chirping but it was glad to see those little creatures.
@JackdanielsA I was thinking also how the towers would be causing problems with bats as they navigate by echolocation and find food and shelter in woods and trees.
@JackdanielsA I live in Norway where mobile phone connections have been ubiquitous for ages and we have no shortage of sparrows. In fact it seems to me that there are more here than before; perhaps they migrated here from the UK?
@JackdanielsA [quote] Science always has a dark side. It invented refrigerator and used CFCs, then banned CFC as they are a havoc to the ozone layer. [/quote]
Or [quote]Science always has a light side. It invented refrigerator and saved millions of lives and when the CFCs that were used were discovered to be causing havoc to the ozone layer found alternatives that fixed the problem.. [/quote]
