Busy, busy, bad weather, busy

I used to be able to get quality time in the park three or four times a week, but these last couple of months have been so very different. I have other interests which, just now, are taking up to three days a week. Hopefully, this will reduce soon, but every time this month when I've seen my way clear to visit the park it's either been raining, or very windy or the school's just out or it's dark: the four main conditions that are not good for birdspotting.

Now it's looking like I'll not get any time in the park this month at all, so all I can say is "better luck next month".

Meanwhile I can report that the RSPB has started a new project, the London House Sparrow Parks Project, this time working with eight Borough Councils, excluding Lewisham unfortunately, testing whether long grass, wildflower meadows, or a tailored 'wildlife seed mix' best provide foods that house sparrows need. This is a three year trial and they have agreed to keep me informed, so I'll occasionally be passing on snippets of news.

The RSPB hope the project will also raise awareness of the plight of the ‘Cockney sparra’, and that they can encourage people to consider sparrows in their own gardens too, beyond providing bird feeders, water or nestboxes. Leaving areas of longer grass and maintaining thick shrubby vegetation should help provide them with somewhere safe to feed, roost and nest.

London House Sparrow Project ends

I received the final newsletter of the London House Sparrow Project this weekend. Here are a few extracts from the text:

“After 5 years of counting your local sparrows, the project is now coming to an end. We are very grateful to all of you for your kind help over the years, whether you helped feed the sparrows, allowed us access to your gardens, or plied us with welcome cups of tea.

“So what have we found after five years of feeding sparrows? Feeding mealworms during the summer increased nesting success of sparrows in every year. However, we only saw an impact of feeding on adult numbers when we fed year-round seed as well as mealworms. [A graph then shows that] adult numbers increased on fed sites, only after seed feeding was introduced in 2007. This suggests sparrows lack sufficient insects to feed their young, and also seed to get them through the autumn and winter.

“With a focus on a few sites over the winter we've been able to work out the “survival rates” (percentage surviving from one year to the next) of our sparrows at the fed and "unfed" sites. Analysis suggests that about 51% of our colour-ringed birds are getting through the winter months, which is pretty much the figure that is cited in other studies as the percentage annual survival for house sparrows. So it doesn't appear that our sparrows are unduly suffering over the winter. It does sound like a lot of birds perishing each year - we have to remember that such small creatures are often rather short-lived, and that maintaining the population depends on a lot of young being produced to counter this.

“For our last fieldwork we looked at a few sites this summer to check on our survey methods for fledglings” [this included the Cliffview Road site; Bird Champ].

“Meanwhile, our exciting new project has begun. The RSPB House Sparrow Parks Project. Officer, Jacqui Weir, with the help of the Royals Parks, the London boroughs and SITA Trust, is trying out large scale experiments on London's green spaces, to find out what sort of park management is best for bugs and seeds, and therefore sparrows and other birds. This is an amazing project which will hopefully produce improvements to London's grassland biodiversity! Jacqui [jacqueline.weir@rspb.org.uk] is the primary contact for your enquiries about this work

“Once again thank you to everyone for your amazing support, we could not have done it without you. And please do visit http://www.rspb.org.uk/ for more details of how you can continue to support our work. In the meantime, please keep looking after your local sparrows!”

So that’s it. The end of the London House Sparrow Project. We’ll miss Chris Orsman’s regular visits here and thank him again for the generous donation of seed, feeder and nest boxes for Hilly Fields Park.

The Kestrel's back (& me too!)

After a few weeks absence on holiday in the Scottish Highlands and then essential maintenence around the house and garden I am, at last, back to the normal routine.

I must mention (because this is very rare) that the Highlands were dry and very hot: up to 30 degC. and only one rainy day. There were plenty of Osprey nearby, one even took a fish just 100m from our apartment, and no shortage of House Sparrows.

For the past few weeks Chris, from the RSPB, has been surveying Cliffview Road and this side of Hilly Fields weekly instead of monthly. When he was here on Thursday, Chris told me the weekly visits have been very successful, from the point of view of the London House Sparrow Project, but next week could be the last of the more frequent visits as breeding is almost over for this season.

I was in Hilly Fields this afternoon and met Keeper Justine who has quite an interest in the birdlife and brought me up-to-date on what was around. I filled the feeder in the Garden and then wandered over past the Playground when suddenly a Kestrel swooped down on something. Whatever it was must've got away because the two photos I managed show the Kestrel without a catch.

RSPB weekly survey

If you see this man with binoculars looking towards the roof of your house, all is well, he's not casing the joint!

This is Chris Orsman from the RSPB on his now weekly survey of House Sparrows in the Cliffview Road area. Chris is a key member of the London House Sparrow Project team which, until recently, surveyed 66 sites across London on a roughly monthly basis. The number of sites has now been reduced to permit weekly visits to the more active sites - including ours.

Chris will be in Hilly Fields park peering into our gardens and also in one or two gardens in Cliffview Road.

Some of his visits may be quite early in the morning but most surveys in our area will be on Wednesdays.

London House Sparrow Project

I’ve just received a call from Chris Orsman from the RSPB London House Sparrow Project.

Until now, they've been monitoring 66 sites around London on a roughly monthly basis, half of them fed with live food and the other half (including ours) are control sites. They are now dropping sites with fewest House Sparrows and intend to monitor the remainder (including ours) on a weekly basis.

To this end Chris, armed with clipboard and binoculars, will be peering over garden hedges around Hilly Fields Park surveying the nesting sites, many of which are in our roofs. Before he begins this new phase next week, Chris intends to visit those houses to introduce himself and assure you he’s not up to no good!

Early Sightings

During the weeks before the feeders were hung, I visited the park several times to record the birds. They were mostly short visits of under half-an-hour and all on the Vicars Hill / Cliffview Road side of the park. The maximum recorded were:

Blackbird 1
Black-headed Gull 2
Blue Tit 1
Carrion Crow 3
Feral Pigeon 9
House Sparrow c50
Woodpigeon 21

This photo Taken near the top Vicars Hill gate shows where we found circa 50 House Sparrows.


Chris from the London House Sparrow Project visited the morning of 10 August 2007 and I mentioned counting in excess of 18 there the previous day, so we ambled into the park and there they were! It took a bit of counting as they're forever flitting from branch to branch.

How I got involved

Late 2004

Took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch counting the maximum number of each species of bird in the garden over a one-hour period and reported a particularly large number of House Sparrows: 22.

Subsequently I received a letter from Chris Orsman (RSPB) asking for further details of how we, and our neighbours, feed the birds.

February 2005

Chris visited and invited us to be a site in the London House Sparrow Project. This is experimenting with supplementary feeding at a number of sparrow colonies, providing live mealworms for the sparrows to feed to their young. We are to be a control site (no live food). Chris makes several visits each year to survey our garden and the immediate neighbourhood.

December 2005

On one of his wildlife walks in Hilly Fields, Mike Keogh admired the green roof of my garage which can be seen from the park. I introduced myself and mentioned Chris and the London House Sparrow Project. That labelled me as a birder!

July 2007

Some eighteen months later Glendale and Lewisham Council are starting a new Bird Champion Project, which aims to survey the park for different bird species and involve the park users in the park’s biodiversity. To this end Lara Al-Jabi asked Rachel Mooney for a Bird Champion for Hilly Fields Park. The rest, as they say, is history.