News
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Library photo: house sparrow
House Sparrow Nesting Boxes
Dunnocks are members of the accentor family which also includes the Alpine accentor which, as the name suggests, is found in the mountainous regions of Europe. In the UK dunnocks are common birds of the hedgerows, farmland and gardens and seem to be thriving at present; unfortunately this cannot be said for the UK's two true species of sparrows; both are on the official list of birds of conservation concern.
Over the last 30 years the tree sparrow has seen the greatest drop in numbers. Even in the Wigan area, which had once been a stronghold for these birds, by 2007 they were only to be found in a few small pockets one of which was Worthington to the north of Wigan. A survey, by the RSPB's NW Region Farmlands Birds Conservation Team, identified a farm in Worthington where tree sparrows were present and a joint project between the Regional Team and the Wigan Local Group erected nesting boxes and provided supplementary feeding during the harder periods of winter.
The winter feeding has been continued for several years and a good population of tree sparrows now occupy the area. The Local Group committee has recently agreed to continue to fund the supplementary feeding programme for another winter. The nesting boxes will also be cleaned out during the non-nesting season.
The position with house sparrows has recently been exercising the minds of the Local Group committee. No-one really knows why the number of house sparrows has crashed but research has suggested that it is probably a number of causes which have combined to create the problem. Over the centuries house sparrows have come to live in close proximity to man, eating the waste from his farming activities and often nesting in the holes in the walls and roofs of houses (this of course gives rise to the name). In the days when nearly every household kept a few chickens their feeding trough provided a ready food supply for sparrows. Our cleaner habits and more rigorous house maintenance has removed food sources and closed the holes in which sparrows can nest. In particular the boxing of house eves with rot-proof plastic has stopped the ingress of birds into roof-spaces - a favourite nesting place for house sparrows.
In an effort to help the beleaguered sparrows the Group Committee has decided to ask members if they have houses which are suitable for the erection of house sparrow nesting boxes which the group will provide. Two members have already agreed to make the boxes so it will cost only the price of the materials. A questionnaire is printed elsewhere in the Newsletter which explains more fully what is necessary to make a suitable site for a nesting box and what the scheme involves. Copies of the questionnaire, which were returned at the last indoor meeting, indicted that a disappointingly large number of members lived in bungalows, some of which are not suitable for nesting box erection. Other members with suitable homes indicated that they would support the scheme but we could use several more sites.
Please consider if you can take part in this scheme, if so, you may well be helping to create, anew, a thriving house sparrow population in the Wigan area.