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.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
