• https://nhm.ac.uk/discover/house-sparrow-passer-domesticus.html

    House Sparrow population 2023 Natural History Museum 

    Bird Life international 2023

  • House Sparrow population trends for 2023
  • Thanks for posting. I did have head in hands at the photo describing house sparrows as "sometimes moving into old house martin nests"!!! Remove 'sometimes' and 'old', and replace with 'often takeover' and 'active' resp.

    Re trends, not sure it moves the old discussion any further forward. I've no idea re sparrow trends for Europe. Makes sense it mirrors other former EU countries....

    Biggest declines were late 70's and early 80's. Loss of gardens to other things like drives, new builds, etc and loss of urban green areas, plus an increase in cat ownership are likely to have been a big factor.

    What would also be interesting is both very short term trends....i.e. 2000 onwards.....and very, very long term trends, i.e. from about 1920's onwards so a century's worth to compare. House sparrows did increase in population before going into decline from those highs.....needs to be factored in imo.

    As for here, despite what appeared to be a poor breeding season, I've not seen any predation this year unlike prev years, and there are clouds of sparrows.....
  • stealthybutnotthatstealthy said:
    Thanks for posting. I did have head in hands at the photo describing house sparrows as "sometimes moving into old house martin nests"!!! Remove 'sometimes' and 'old', and replace with 'often takeover' and 'active' resp.

    Re trends, not sure it moves the old discussion any further forward. I've no idea re sparrow trends for Europe. Makes sense it mirrors other former EU countries....

    Biggest declines were late 70's and early 80's. Loss of gardens to other things like drives, new builds, etc and loss of urban green areas, plus an increase in cat ownership are likely to have been a big factor.

    What would also be interesting is both very short term trends....i.e. 2000 onwards.....and very, very long term trends, i.e. from about 1920's onwards so a century's worth to compare. House sparrows did increase in population before going into decline from those highs.....needs to be factored in imo.

    As for here, despite what appeared to be a poor breeding season, I've not seen any predation this year unlike prev years, and there are clouds of sparrows.....

    Thats ok yes it would be interesting.

    as for the part where you said 

    As for here, despite what appeared to be a poor breeding season, I've not seen any predation this year unlike prev years, and there are clouds of sparrows.....

    I also find it interesting that House Sparrows are common in gardens Thry don’t visit me and my familys garden or the one in Kingsway.  they are common gardens people do get them in gardens but I rarely get any. My family never get any in the garden and rarely get any in the garden in Kingsway at all even though there in the area it’s almost as if they avoid my family’s garden and the one in Kingsway. I used to put bird food out a lot the birds that visited were Blue Tits, Great Tits, Goldfinch, Starlings, Magpies and Woodpigeons but no House Sparrows iv noticed this ever since I started putting bird food out in the garden  some years ago before I stopped putting it out for them at some point  this year.  not getting sparrows isn’t the reason I stopped but I still rarely get any sparrows to this day anyway regardless 

  • Lack of nest sites in new build estates is another big issue in addition to the list I wrote earlier.....
  • We've had 3 broods down here, from the houses behind ours. Not seen any downturn in Martins, although the artificial nest they used last year (next door) wasn't used at all this year.
  • What would also be interesting is both very short term trends....i.e. 2000 onwards.....and very, very long term trends, i.e. from about 1920's onwards

    Ok. I have found some trends from British birds that go back that far  and there are some graphs aswell 

    here is the link 

    https://britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf

    1920 to 2010 

                               1940 to 2010 

     

    Data thats from Bto is from 1970 to the year 2000 but the other data abouve goes  back to 1920 

  • My house sparrow numbers have gone up year on year since I started feeding them around 15 years ago.
  • Agreed. As a bird species, they have to be amongst the easiest to ‘turn around’ population declines. Give them food and a nest site, that is all they need to boom.
  • yes there is data that goes back 1920s to 2000s

    for BTO however they don’t have any data that goes back that far they only go back to 1970 to the year 2000 

    the most latest data on house sparrow populations is the 2023 ones I sent house Sparrows are increasing in Scotland and Wales but decreasing in England for the reasons we have already discussed so far

    As for house sparrows in gardens house sparrows visiting the garden in Kingsway and my familys garden is rare even though they’re in the area my family even though my family puts food out and I had in Kingsway over the years. Kingsway is a village and is called the village of Kingsway even though it’s has lots of houses a lot of them with walls around them. Quedgeley is not far Quedgeley is classed as a Town. Theres alot of putting houses on for sale and people turning this or that into something else or come if you with an idea to turn a certain area into something and you start to think but there’s enough houses and buildings in the area we don’t need anymore. new shops have been built and the orchard down the road has an an estate nearby. Iv never seen the Sparrows nesting on the houses in Kingsway or Quedgeley but I have seen nests with sparrows in hedges and I saw House Sparrows and Starlings collecting nesting material in Kingsway  the house sparrows were flying from a branch into shrub with nesting material just down the road this year