Gardening For Wildlife in the UK

I read what this woman did with 3 acres and was inspired.
http://www.wildlifeforever.net/index.htm

One thing to note, this is the UK and English House Sparrows are indigenous there. I liked very much that she indicated she was using plants native to her region.

Another progressive site from the UK-
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=environment:people:gardening

Loved what was written about pesticides.

Speaking of English House Sparrows, I found this story endearing-
http://www.wildlife-gardening.org.uk/default.asp?news=News60725-sparrows.xml
Granted, I'm glad he doesn't live over here by me but English House Sparrows are struggling over on their side of the pond so it's only natural to give their indigenous species a helping hand... or in this case... helping underwear.

Darn, I got "Page Cannot Be Located" on the last link.

See if this works

http://www.wildlife-gardening.org.uk/default.asp?news=News60725-sparrows.xml

OOps, guess not. Go to the home page, and look at the news articles, it's pretty funny

This message was edited Jan 20, 2007 11:54 PM

I haven't a clue why it doesn't work but here's an excerpt,

You simply must love that this man conscientiously chose to leave his underwear up on his clothes line to help out the English House Sparrows. I would do the same thing if a Bluebird had nested in my underwear. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone over here in wanting to help out our native cavity nesters. Sheesh these Brits are progressive! Virtually every time I try a search for gardening + for + wildlife I'm running into one site after the next from the UK. Well, I did run into a site from Better Homes & Gardens. Guess what their feature plant for wildlife gardening was... a butterfly bush. One problem, we North American wildlife gardeners aren't exactly gardening in Tibet.

Thats a great story!

Wonderful story, thanks Equilibrium for sharing.

Wish he had taken a picture of it!

So wait, I didn't read all the links but are you telling me that English House Sparrows are struggling over there?

Can't we just ship them ours?

Yes, they are struggling over there. And you should read some of the theories behind why they are struggling. If only I had the time to share the choicest of them all with you.

We're not the only country struggling with these issues.

joepyeweed, I've been wondering the same thing for years

Yes I would love to hear why their struggling over there when you have time Equil. My first thought too Joe, why can't we ship them ours.

Not only in England, House Sparrows are in decline, but also in Belgium and in most of the European countries.
According to a Belgium report from the Bird Protection Organisation, reasons for that are multiple.
In big Belgian cities , the House Sparrow population has dramatically declined 80% during the last decade.
Major causes are lack of breeding places and the fumes of cars that excrete poisonous benzene that kills many insects necessary for the breeding of the baby sparrows. The first breed is still successful, but the second and third fails.

On the country site major causes are :
1. In the past farmers had about 1 meter of wild growing vegetation, bordering their fields. But now they don't leave any free space any longer or just spray it with herbicides.
2. the modern agriculture methods, where agriculture machinery doesn't leave any seeds on the field.

The situation is been taken very serious by the Bird Protection Organisation and every year they ask the cooperation of people to help them tracking the evolution of the population, by counting the couples of sparrows that occur in their gardens.

Beautiful photos and it is truly a shame their numbers have declined so dramatically in their home range. I wish we could send ours all over to you too but sadly, many are now carriers of West Niles Virus. They don't die from it but they are a vector. The European Starling is also a vectore. That means that to send them back might mean the demise of indigenous species you have over there that might succumb to the disease as have many of our native species over here.

Really glad you posted in this thread. Sometimes we Americans start thinking we are the only ones who have problems with our "native" species.

Well, i havent seen a decline in sparrows around where i live.................. maybe they all come to my garden!!
I have 40 or 50 in my garden everyday, they eat and bathe and then sit in my lilac tree making a unholy noise talking to each other..............LOL
I blame a lot of the decline of finches especially on the southern europeans.............. when the finches migrate back into europe the southern europeans set up huge nets to catch them!!!!
Then they sell them as a delicacy...................... no wonder there are so few finches around!!!!

Took me a while but then I looked at your user name and realized you were from the UK where you refer to them as finches. I keep forgetting the English House Sparrow is not in the same family as any of our North American Sparrows. It's a Weaver Finch.

???????
I'm sorry but
I'm completely confused now, what is a Weaver Finch
What have finches to do with sparrows ?

Has the English, or in my case; the Belgian House Sparrow, nothing to do with the North American one ?

There is no such thing as a North American English House Sparrow. It was introduced to this continent. English House Sparrows are Passer domesticus. They're from the Ploceidae family. North American sparrows are from a different family.

http://nematode.unl.edu/hsparrow.htm

Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves. Everybody calls House Sparrows Weaver Finches. They are not a Weaver and not a Finch. They are in the same taxonomic Order, but not in the same Family. I have tried to find someone who can tell me why the whole birding community ignores taxonomy. I never have found an answer.

Weaver Bird:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Ploceidae

Finch:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Fringillidae

House Sparrow:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Passeridae
Genus: Passer
Species: P. domesticus

Oops- Beat me! You are 100% correct on the family.

There is no such thing as a North American English House Sparrow. It was introduced to this continent. English House Sparrows are Passer domesticus. They're from the Passeridae family. North American sparrows are from a different family.

North American Sparrows are from the Emberizidae family. There, have I redeemed myself a little ;)

Why do so many people always refer to them as Weaver Finches? They refer to them as finches on the other side of the pond.

Isn't there a Family of Weaver Finches called Estrildidae?
Not that there's any in the U.S., except in cages...

Are you so sure they're only in cages ;) Seems as if we let everything else go around here these days.

Okay, Java Sparrows and Nutmeg Mannikins in Fl and Ca that got out of cages...

edit: My old Peterson guide (one of several) puts Passer domesticus, the House Sparrow, squarely in the Family Ploceidae. The Sibley book has them in Passeridae. But these are field guides. There must have been a taxonomic shake-up in recent times, relatively speaking. So millions of people have been calling these birds Weaver Finches for years. And, there seems to be disagreement on whether Estreldidae is a Family or a Sub-family.

This message was edited Feb 5, 2007 2:15 PM

Stelco has it right. Some older texts used to merge the sparrows (Passeridae) and weavers (Ploceidae) into one family, but that is no longer followed.

The North American "sparrows" are of course, not sparrows at all, but buntings (family Emberizidae) - they are much later 'imposters', with the term 'sparrow' being originally applied (over a thousand years ago!) to species of Passer.

The family Estrildidae, confined to the Old World tropics, is usually known as the waxbill family, after the type genus Estrilda (waxbills).

Resin