By 10 year-old LP
I think Sparrows are beautiful. We have loads in and around our garden, who visit the numerous feeders about 50 times a day each (no exaggeration)! They love a particular tree, slap bang on the border of my next-door neighbour’s garden and mine. The reason they love the tree is because my neighbour has put about three feeders on a pole on his side full of seeds that all sparrows love.
Grandma and Grandpa gave me a tub of that type of seeds which I put in my feeder. It was gone in two days or something like that. But then again, most of the seeds went to the pigeons underneath the tree, because the sparrows dropped like 20 for every seed they actually ate.
I have quite a lot of pictures of sparrows, taken with my Mum’s camera which she let me use. Most of them are of sparrows on my neighbour’s feeder, but sometime towards the end of April, I got a picture of them on my feeder.
Sparrows are small birds, about 14-18 cm long. Both gender’s backs are brown, the male’s a little bit darker than the female’s. Males have black stripes across their eyes, with a black chin, or ‘bib’ as science would call it. Some would say a male sparrow looks a little angry! Females have a light brown stripe across the eye, with no ‘bib’, but have a dusty brown belly and chest, and, like I said before, a slightly lighter back than that of the male.
Despite being the RSPB’s most spotted bird in the 2020 Big Garden Birdwatch, there was a massive decline in the sparrow population in 1979. Fortunately, work is being done to make this beautiful bird come back from the brink of extinction.
All in all, I think sparrows are something that we shouldn’t take for granted, as with any other bird. We are so lucky to be able to enjoy these brown jewels of the sky with such freedom. Remember what they’ve been through, and even little things such as putting a feeder out can be a big help to these Splendid Sparrows.
