B IS FOR BIRDS

Sparrows to be more species specific. Over the last 10 years or so scientists have been monitoring the decline of the common house sparrow. I myself, have noticed that there does seem to be a dearth of these cute little fellas. So imagine my surprise and pleasure when I came across a breeding pair in our tangerine tree.

The nest is up under the eaves of our shed and the tangerine shelters and protects them from predators and the afternoon sun. I thought I'd cut the sparrows some slack and leave them to set up house especially when I saw two Indian minors giving them a hard time.

Normally we are quite prejudiced against non native birds in our garden. Indian minors, blackbirds, starlings and even pigeons are chased off with the hose or our helpful Bluey, Ruby.

Encouraged by us planting native plants are the wattle birds, native doves, wrens & parrots. Most of these native birds help me to keep the damage caused by the burgeoning insect population to a minimum and the nectar eaters help with pollination.

I explained to the sparrows that they would have to earn their keep if I was going to allow them to stay. 

So for the last 6 months we have left the sparrows to their own devices & thanks to word of mouth and rodent like breeding we now have a colony of approx 60. They nest in the neighbours eaves, under awnings, in roofs and in our garden. I keep them interested by putting out seed occasionally and they are working quite well at keeping the black citrus aphids and spiders in check. But the big reward is the numbers, I'll be keeping an eye on them and going on how many chicks are being hatched we should be able to start exporting sparrows to Europe in about 12 months.