I live in the South Bay area of Los angeles over my 65 years I have watched many changes in certain bird populations. The english sparrow seemed to be somewhat immune to the factors affecting many other species and remained relatively constant throughout my life, until about 5 years ago. They seemed to be falling in population now to the point where I will go days without even seeing one. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is that the final small patches of remaining grassy fields has disappeared, other than that I have no clue. Any ideas?
Startlings have also fallen off to almost nothing. I seem to be seeing a slightly wider variety of sonbirds than usual, jays, mockingbirds, flycatchers, crows, pigeons and doves seem normal.
I’m in the Audobon Society but not nearly as active as my sister, who is president of the chapter in our city. I’m more of a hanger on, helping with the Christmas Bird Count and so on.
I’ll ask my sister about resources for answering your questions. Have you tried looking up a local chapter of the Society?
Sparrows in the UK, after years of decline, have recently starting increasing.
Maybe they’re emigrating back
Starlings here are also apparently starting to decline, though they’re still pretty common. Our bizzare one has been goldfinches- I remember my family getting excited because one took up residence down the road, about 13 years ago- we have flocks of them all over the place now. The very similar chaffinch has had a population collapse over the same time.
I am pretty sure the local crows are resposible for controlling the starlings. They can be seen raiding the nests around metal buildings and such. We have had west nile outbreaks here in recent years, the crows were hit hard as witnessed by sick and dead birds littering the streets. Puzzled by the lack of sparrows.
There’s currently a huge snowy owl irruption invading the northeast and midwest. MAP.
No idea if I will have a chance to get up there this winter (or if they will filter down as far as northern Florida-latest sightings have them in South Carolina…!).
I went to the East Mountains (Tijeras, near Sandia) and saw more than 60 house finches and 50 juncos. Crows, raven, solitaires, and yes, starlings were also well represented as were jays. At least we saw no house sparrows.
Today i drove close to 100 miles between Orange county and Los Angeles, I didn’t notice one English sparrow. I was looking for them a good part of the time driving.
I just found a cite that discussed the population declines in areas that have lost open spaces and grassy areas. Spiders seem to play an important part in the survival rate of chicks. In recent years we have had a steady increase in the population of hornets, wasps and mud daubers, all of these are spider hunters. I wonder if this might be a key toward controlling the house sparrow.
