Xref: kermit uk.rec.gardening:189721

In message , martin
writes
but we only have two sparrows left :-((

I've got plenty, 'cos they've got plenty of cover. The local sparrowhawk
is quite skinny, and the sparrows know where the ivy is....

nearly all the sparrows disappeared here at the same time and at least
a year before I saw reports that the same had happened in UK. One year
they were everywhere as normal, the next year they had all gone.

The last cock sparrow in our garden went quite mad: throwing himself
against the shed window, then, when we covered that, against the bedroom
window; then he 'adopted' the baby bluetits in the nesting box: he sat
on the box all day, trying to keep the parents away. The woodpecker also
attacked the box, so we hung a cage over the box. (After that all went
well, and the bluetits raised their young. We left the cage on there for
years.)
In any case, I wondered whether it was some sort of bird flu that had
this strange effect.

--
Klara, Gatwick basin