A lazy bird and a long-term plan

A sparrow. I saw a sparrow in my garden. I'm amazed and delighted. If you're wondering why the sight of a small, brown and rather common garden bird should get me in such a feverish state... consider the fact that I have NEVER seen a sparrow in my garden since we moved in almost four years ago. They are vanishing.

My garden is not exactly green, nor is it large. It's better than it was, but I have yet to lift the great expanse of concrete slabs we inherited with the house. I hope to grass most of it in the near future and will aim for a wild flower meadow rather than a cropped, stripey lawn.

Sparrows are lazy critters and rarely move far from their home colonies. You'd be lucky to see one stray more than half a kilometre. So to see one on the feeder in my garden is actually amazing. It was a young female with an obvious passion for adventure. I'm not aware of a house sparrow colony nearby so she must have wandered some distance! Where did she come from? Will she come back? Will she write or send chocolates?

Questions, questions. Is this sparrow's arrival a result of the changes I've made to the garden? Is it just a juvenile looking for a new colony, a female looking for a mate? Is it just a one-off thing, never to be repeated. I guess I'll have to wait and watch to answer these questions.

I haven't got any figures to support this, but I have a theory that London's sparrows are starting to recover from a long running decline. That's quite a controversial statement and is made with some very thin anecdotal evidence. I know the RSPB is doing a lot to save sparrows. I know local authorities and land-owners we're working with in the Capital are doing a lot for house sparrows. I know many individuals are helping grow food and shelter by planting hedges, shrubs and trees and leaving some long grass at their lawn-edges. Now, other charities are waking up to the fact that we all need to act to save our sparrows. With so much going on, we must be having an impact.

Data suggests otherwise. We're still losing species across the board. Sparrows are great barometers of the state of our world. Because they're lazy and won't stray far, not even to find food, they reflect the true state of our environment. If the things they need in order to survive have vanished, it means something's going wrong with our environment. Consider sparrows an early warning system.

Bees are also sufferring but they're less obvious than sparrows. Restoring plants for house sparrows helps bees too. But, you can feed bees without having a garden, if you don't mind them and wasps hanging around your homemade bee feeder. Just get a shallow non-porous dish and pour in a solution of two tablespoons of granulated sugar, dissolved in a tablespoon of water. Put this outside near some nectar rich flowers and hey presto, your very own bee feeder.

Wherever you live, you're influenced by the seasons. All our food, air and water comes from nature, we need to look after it now. The Government's latest announcement by Hilary Benn on Food Security goes someway towards recognising that our wellbeing and nature are interlinked. I want my daughters' to be able to enjoy the sight of sparrows in gardens and parks. I want them to be able to close their eyes and hear the buzz of industrious honey bees and admire  our amazing landscapes. They can only do this if we all invest time and money supporting and protecting nature. You can help convince the Government to build a future that values nature by signing our Letter to the Future. Speak-up for nature and show politicians that we want our tax money to help rebuild our economy in a way that doesn't harm nature. Together, we can make it happen.