MOV004

I grew up with the sound of house sparrows and it is ironic that just about the only place to see them now in central London is at the zoo, where they thrive. They are still about but in nothing like the numbers of my childhood. I saw a single male bird - the first for about a year - in my front garden about a month ago and tried an experiment...placing food in the form of millet sprays and fat balls (sold as 'fat peckers' in our local farm shop....) actually within the hedge. What a success! Day on day, a small feeding flock of about twenty individuals has formed and the feeding method has proved much to their liking. Now I am tempting them closer and closer to the sparrow boxes I've put up on the side of the house and the chimney stack...I'll stuff hay in the entrance holes to stimulate interest and see what happens. The video shows a female and then a male feeding within the hedge.