Tweets in the street: how to tag the elusive sparrow
WEARING a bright green cagoule and swooping in and out of residential gardens, Dr Paul Baker is as familiar a sight to the residents of Partick’s Peel Street as the house sparrows that he, and fellow researcher Dr Ross MacLeod, capture, measure and tag for the RSPB.
“This is not what he usually wears,” chuckles Dr MacLeod – tall, ginger, amiable. “He’s hoping they won’t recognise him.”
“I’m not convinced,” Dr Baker deadpans in return, the tangible lilt of a Scouse accent betraying his Liverpool origins. Theirs is an easy relationship. Both emit an infectious enthusiasm and clearly possess boundless knowledge of their subject, a field of study that delicately balances passionate animal welfare campaigning with a pure love of good, old-fashioned bird-watching.
Since embarking on the task of tracking Glasgow’s sparrow population three years ago, both men and their team have managed to “ring” and record more than 300 birds. In practice, it’s all very refreshingly low-tech.
Expansive, spider-webbed nets are set up in the gardens of the Partick area, held aloft by green poles which stretch higher than even the tallest of hedges. House sparrows then fly, unwittingly but safely, into the trap and are held there to be bagged and carried to the boot of Dr Baker’s open car. There, an array of minute, colourful rings are attached to the birds’ legs before they are released back into the garden whence they came.
Though seemingly straightforward, it’s a one-time-only shot for success. “Sparrows are not stupid,” says Paul. “You don’t tend to catch them twice.’
At one time, house sparrows were the most common species of bird in the UK. The past 50 years have, however, seen a sea-change in their fortunes. In Glasgow alone, the population of house sparrows has declined by a reported 98 per cent since 1959. No other vertebrate species in Britain has experience quite so astonishingly significant a collapse. (Reasons are said to include a loss of nesting sites and sources of food, and changes to farming practices.)
The men’s work in Partick represents just one part of a network of research being carried out by RSPB Scotland and Glasgow University, with the aim of understanding what has driven – and what can be done to reverse – the losses.
The drive has seen a call for people to “take the hedge pledge’: to volunteer to allow their hedges to grow up and out naturally, untrimmed, through spring and summer. Colloquially called “lazy gardening”, it’s a tactic that’s proved pleasingly successful. As Dr MacLeod says: “We can actually almost create these mini urban nature reserves in our garden, which is fantastic.”
It is clear, talking to the two doctors, that the wider public requires very little by way of encouragement to engage, with many seizing the opportunity to get involved. Indeed, Dr Baker points out one household in which muchneeded restoration work was delayed so as not to affect a nesting family of house sparrows hidden above the doorway.
Likewise, hungry birds are spoilt for choice in dining opportunities; an erect and sturdy feeder can be located in each of the street’s many deliberately unkempt gardens.
As I chat with both men, we are even interrupted by a neighbour who has come to report that six house sparrows have been caught in the net in his garden. The reactions of the pair to this news is perhaps best compared to that of Charlie Bucket finding one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets in the wrapper of his beloved chocolate bar.
With a respectable cry of glee, Dr MacLeod bounds off to investigate, while his colleague declares me their good-luck charm – today’s being an unusually potent haul. On many such mornings, hours of patient waiting and watching have proved frustratingly fruitless.
When a house sparrow is caught, initial observations can immediately indicate the age and gender of the bird, teased out by a Holmesian deduction of its physiognomy. A dash of white feathering on the head may signal a male, whilst hints of yellow at the base of the beak is suggestive of a young bird – this being the last vestige of the chick’s gape from birth.
It’s no precise science, though: Dr Baker concedes that he has “made the mistake of predicting too early”. From here, the caught bird can be measured and weighed, pressed tightly but softly within the holder’s hand in a clasp known as “the ringer’s grip”, a technique designed to prevent the bird from utilising its wings. If they can’t flap, I’m told, they don’t feel the stress so much. However much fun the team is having, the welfare of the house sparrows is of the utmost importance.
One of the most fascinating developments to arise from the three years of surveying is the discovery of just how localised house sparrows are in habitation. Whereas the ringing of other species may seek to track birds’ migration across many hundreds of miles and to different countries, it is considered an exciting development in Glasgow to discover that a house sparrow has travelled the 2.8-mile journey to Maryhill. Once, says Dr Macleod, with just a hint of irony, a Peel Street bird was sighted in Whiteinch.
A good few years remain yet before both men can call it a day on their research; in the meantime, they’re asking members of the public to let them know where and when they see a house sparrow by “tweeting” them online: @particksparrow1.
The end result will be both a publication on their findings and, hopefully, an uplift in Glasgow’s house sparrow population. The dream? First Partick, then Glasgow, then Scotland, and then, just maybe, the entire UK. And to think that all you need to do is sacrifice the chore of cutting your hedge.
The reaction of the pair to this news is perhaps best compared to Charlie Bucket finding one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets