In *The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, *Michael McCarthy writes eloquently about the near-extinction of house sparrows in London, England. He examines several explanations and adds the perspective of possibly more geographically restricted habitats for sparrows compared with other urban birds affected by the same factors. As a result, these other species would be better able to replenish diminished populations by influx from elsewhere, whereas sparrows would experience very localized extinction. If true, averages numbers over large areas could obscure significant differences from place to place at lower levels of aggregation.
On Monday, April 9, 2018 at 4:21:36 PM UTC-6, Richard Trinkner wrote: > > Some personal House Sparrow data: > > Between 1996 and 2015, House Sparrows appear on 30.16% of my Colorado > checklists. > > Between 2015 and 2018, they appear on only 13.44% of my Colorado > checklists. > > They used to be very common bird for my backyard feeders. Between 1996 and > 2015, House Sparrows were on 58.21% of my backyard checklists. *So far in > 2018, I haven't had a single House Sparrow*. Not one. I've completed 26 > checklists for my yard this year: not a single House Sparrow. > > In Boulder, House Sparrows seem to be hanging on in small numbers in very > urban areas. I walk to work most mornings in central Boulder. I used to > nearly trip on House Sparrows. I still see them often (72% of my morning > walk checklists), but now I have to listen carefully for their call and I > generally only get a small handful of individuals. > > On the center-north Boulder CBC route on which I counted last December, we > only found sparrows in only two locations, whereas in past years they were > extremely common. > > Here's an article about their decline: > https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171003111056.htm. > > I've also read that they may be particularly susceptible to cell phone > tower radiation, and that their bug food source may be susceptible to such > radiation as well. > > Cheers, > > Richard Trinkner > Boulder > > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 11:48 AM, 'Hugh Kingery' via Colorado Birds < > cob...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Denver Audubon just received a call from a woman in Lafayette with a >> unique subject: where have the House Sparrows gone? >> >> She says she used to have as many as 80, but now she sees only a pair or >> two, sproadically. They check out her yard and continue on somewhere else. >> Have any of you experienced a diminishing numbers of House Sparrows? >> >> >> Hugh Kingery >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Colorado Birds" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to cobirds+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to cob...@googlegroups.com >> <javascript:>. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/162ab861dc0-179e-141ed%40webjas-vab073.srv.aolmail.net >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/162ab861dc0-179e-141ed%40webjas-vab073.srv.aolmail.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/77c78c6f-905e-4c5f-9eb7-cf7ee0ae43a5%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
