Votaries of Synanthropic Pals,

The house sparrow is being squeezed. Like the weather, it’s one of these things that I’ve noticed changing during my lifetime (perhaps this is because I am a veteran of the planet Earth, perhaps I will witness more changes in the future); I miss the house sparrow.

This struck me yesterday when a flock of birds descended upon the garden; it was nothing special, except that it was. I was mainly interested because there was a willow warbler in the garden – a rarity – but the sparrows feeding on the scattering of seeds on the ground was quite captivating.

There are a number of reasons why sparrows are under threat; they have been in decline over the century, not only since the 1980s. Urbanisation can obviously be blamed. I suppose the spread of seagulls is a key factor too. More locally, on the scale of our street, I’d like to blame cats. Cats are evil. Owners must take more responsibility for their cats, they can’t just let them roam and kill. The government should consider stepping in; perhaps a cull is in order. There was an organised cull of hedgehogs on a Scottish island recently: if the authorities think that is fair to adjust the populations of two wild species (hedgehogs versus nesting birds), it must then consider controlling the population of an ill-behaved, unnecessary, domestic animal to boost the numbers of beautiful birds that are vital for the well-being of ecosystems.

I’ll appreciate the sparrows, because the cat people don’t.