Fatal Assumption

I rarely mention the wildlife in my back garden, for the very good reason that like the garden it's pretty small and generally uninteresting.

Despite the above, I have at least, up to this winter, enjoyed the company of between six and ten house sparrows which regularly came to the seed and peanut feeders which hang on the back of the garage wall.

Me Old Cock Sparrow on the garage wall

Occasionally I might spot a blue, great or long-tailed tit on the feeders and maybe the odd blackbird, dunnock or robin bouncing round on the ground, but, I'm afraid most days it was just house sparrows that came to enjoy the free food. And that was fine with me - they are a very active and in their own way, pretty little bird. Also, given the sad decline in numbers over the last twenty years, it was good to know that they were successfully breeding locally.

Unfortunately, over the last few months, I have only seen occasional glimpses of these formally constant visitors.

The long-tailed tit - one of my occasional visitors

and the bird with the saddest eyes in featherdom

 

Many of my friends, who regularly put out food, have also been reporting a marked lack of birds in their gardens this winter and there seems to have been general agreement, that this mild weather has resulted in plenty of natural food being accessible and so the birds did not need to visit our feeders.

I can't help but think that maybe there is flaw in this argument, in so much that; if the birds were happy to avail themselves of an easy meal in summer and autumn when natural food was really plentiful, why would they stop in winter, even if it is much milder than normal.

I'm not sure I have truly bottomed out the reason for the missing sparrows, but I have now definitely found at least one factor:

Sparrow or anti-sparrow? - hawk

The roof on which this raptor is perched is the same garage off which the feeders hang, so by keeping close to the wall, he is trying to stay out of sight long enough to get a dart at anything coming to the food about 10 feet below him.

The eyes have it

Like many wildlife observers I now find myself in the paradoxical situation of caring for the house sparrows and worrying about their future, but at the same time loving the chance to see the sparrowhawk at such close quarters.

I suspect my quandary pales to insignificance, compared to that facing the house sparrows!