sparrows

[Penny Brockman <>]

Hi all - House Sparrows seem to be doing very well here in Gloucester 
NSW, particularly around the Take-away Chicken shop. Most days I see 
them flying back and forth across my back garden and using the bird 
bath, and each breeding season I have been here (from Sept 2002) adults 
have been followed by begging juveniles.
However, they certainly declined in Darlington, Sydney, during the 22 
years I lived there, as did the Bulbuls and Blue Wrens, the latter two I 
think due to the influx of Currawongs over that period. The decline 
mainly due to the gentrification of the area and grubbing out of tangled 
undergrowth in back yards, in which they all hid and bred, and Sydney 
University campus where the only shelter the little birds had was in 
thick shrubbery but this was deemed unsafe for students at night as it 
could conceal thieves and rapists, and hence it was cleaned out.
Bob Forsyth wrote:

> G'day all,
>  
> A year or so the number of sparrows in my territory seriously declined 
> but
> about 6 months ago the numbers returned to the more recent normal
>  
> They arrived here 1966