SPARROW: garden mystery leads to double blow

THE humble house sparrow has declined so sharply in recent years that fears have been raised for its long-term future - unthinkable a few decades ago when flocks were common.

According to the RSPB, house sparrow numbers fell by a staggering 64 per cent between the 1970s and the 1990s - an estimated loss of almost 10 million birds.

While no-one seems to know what lies behind its continuing decline, everyone appears united in admiration of this perky little bird.

Nineteenth century writer Henry David Thoreau wrote:"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden and felt more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."

I've been thinking of house sparrows quite a bit lately after a pair nested in a hole high up an outside wall at our house.

Last week, this nest sparked a little sadness and a lot of mystery when my wife noticed three waxy pink, featherless chicks close by.

All were dead and the hole itself deserted.

Surprisingly, none of the chicks were lying directly beneath the hole as casualties in previous years have been found.

Two were discovered on top of a plastic garden table 15ft away next to some fir trees, the other beneath.

Very odd. None could have glided so far on their tiny, stunted wings. In addition, all three corpses seemed unusually large and heavy for sparrow nestlings.

Two possibilities originally sprang to mind: (1) The chicks had been snatched from the hole and then dropped by one of the predatory birds that haunt our garden - magpies, crows, or a solitary tawny owl.

(2) They had just fallen from the hole and their frantic mother had tried vainly to retrieve them, hoisting two as far as the table top.

Neither theory was correct, as I later discovered.

I should really have taken more note when I saw an angry female blackbird driving off a magpie in our garden recently.

In the branches of the tree, just above the table, I found an empty blackbird's nest.

Of course, the dead nestlings were blackbird chicks all along.

There had been TWO nests outside our kitchen door at the same time.

This was the nest which had actually been attacked.

Whatever had happened, both sites were now deserted, the sparrow's eggs in the wall apparently left unhatched.

A desperate drama had obviously been played out, too traumatic for the mother sparrow to remain in place.

Rather than stick around to see her own chicks massacred, she had left them to die in their shells. Sad.

At least now there was no excuse for us not to go out into our back garden. Nor could I put off any longer one of my least favourite chores.

I finally mowed the damn lawn.