House Sparrows on Hampstead Heath
The House Sparrow Passer domesticus, is a familiar bird to many since they frequent built-up areas, chirping from hedges, flocking to garden feeders and taking food scraps from the streets. In appearance, they’re a typical ‘little brown job’ but watch them closely and they are full of character. The females are sandy brown with streaked markings, whilst adult males are darker, with a grey and chestnut head offset by a black bib and eye stripe.
Male House Sparrow
House sparrows are very closely linked with us. A study into urban populations by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) confirmed what people have noticed for centuries, that House Sparrows really do prefer to live around houses, particularly those with gardens where they can find food. Allotments were also important foraging areas, but with fewer breeding places.
House Sparrows naturally nest in cliff crevices, tree hollows or thickets but often choose roof spaces. The move to block up eaves on existing and new houses has reduced nesting opportunities for sparrows, but specially made sparrow boxes are an ideal alternative. Although most birds are territorial at breeding time, House sparrows are social throughout the year, so ‘sparrow terraces’ with multiple nest cavities in one box can work well. At Heath Hands, we regularly make sparrow terraces with our volunteers to offer nesting places on Hampstead Heath as part of our adopt a wildlife home scheme - you can support this project by adopting a sparrow terrace here.
House Sparrow terrace boxes made by Heath Hands volunteers.
Despite traditionally being a common garden bird, House Sparrows need our help. BTO research shows populations have declined by nearly 71% since 1977, with the most acute declines in urban areas. Populations of the beloved ‘Cockney Sparra’ have disappeared from any London parks. The reasons are thought to be a combination of habitat loss as streets and gardens are paved, insect declines (reducing food supply for chicks) and disease, particularly avian malaria.
There are populations of House Sparrows on residential streets adjacent to Parliament Hill, which have been seen visiting the Heath to forage and collect nesting material. However, House Sparrows don’t venture far onto the Heath since they have small home ranges. One threat to House Sparrows is habitat loss, which in gardens can come in the form of paving, replacing hedges with walls or fencing and replacing lawns with plastic grass, reducing foraging and sheltering habitat.
To help support our local sparrows (and other wildlife!), we are increasing habitat connectivity by planting native hedging around the Hive and the Savernake Road entrance, wildlife gardening along Savernake Road bridge and with our new wildflower meadow creation project. This should help to buffer potential unpredictable habitat loss in surrounding private gardens and provide House Sparrows with secure living space with a buffet of wild seeds, berries and insects.
Female House Sparrow feeding on blackberries on Hampstead Heath. Photo (c) Keir Chauhan.
If you have a garden, it is easy to help House Sparrows by feeding them, providing hedging or climbers for roosting, stopping pesticide use and leaving wilder areas where they can find more insects and ‘weed seeds’ such as dandelion and chickweed. Whether or not you have a garden of your own, you can help us to help Hampstead’s House Sparrows by adopting a sparrow terrace or supporting our habitats appeal.
