House Sparrows Completely Vanished? (1 Viewer)

[Cynthia R.]

All of my backyard house sparrows have completely disappeared from my area. They’re usually here all year round and have frequented my feeders daily (which I watch religiously) for the entire 5 years I’ve been living here. That is until a month ago. They just vanished suddenly overnight. No signs of illness. No bird corpses. No changes in the environment.

I was hoping to see if this sort of thing is happening anywhere else with any of you folks in Washington state?

 

[etudiant]

All of my backyard house sparrows have completely disappeared from my area. They’re usually here all year round and have frequented my feeders daily (which I watch religiously) for the entire 5 years I’ve been living here. That is until a month ago. They just vanished suddenly overnight. No signs of illness. No bird corpses. No changes in the environment.

I was hoping to see if this sort of thing is happening anywhere else with any of you folks in Washington state?

Maybe they moved here to NYC.? They seem more numerous this year.

 

[Cynthia R.]

Maybe they moved here to NYC.? They seem more numerous this year.

You could be right. I’ve been seeing more a lot more sky pollution than normal where I live in the sticks. My other backyard birds (mostly finches & doves) haven’t gone away or changed their habits. Maybe house sparrows are more sensitive to that sort of thing and moved to the other coast.

 

[Larsjen]

I live in NW WA and haven’t seen a decline in them.

 

[Scott98]

I'm on the other side of the continent in Massachusetts, but this past winter there were almost no sparrows seen on my property at all - nor juncos. Very surprising as usually it's quite busy every day with white-throated sparrows and others. I suspect a red-tail hawk and/or Barred Owls have scared them off for now.

A few months ago I saw a Barred Owl hanging around my yard 3 times in one week. That's not normal, they must be living nearby this year and that's cleaned out the songbirds for now.

 

[Cynthia R.]

I live in NW WA and haven’t seen a decline in them.

Good. That’s a stress reliever. Thank you for letting me know. Hopefully they come back or repopulate here this spring. Now the goldfinches are gone too, but this happens every year at this time because they’re molting. So right now we only have a few collared doves showing up daily 🕊️

 

[Cynthia R.]

I'm on the other side of the continent in Massachusetts, but this past winter there were almost no sparrows seen on my property at all - nor juncos. Very surprising as usually it's quite busy every day with white-throated sparrows and others. I suspect a red-tail hawk and/or Barred Owls have scared them off for now.

A few months ago I saw a Barred Owl hanging around my yard 3 times in one week. That's not normal, they must be living nearby this year and that's cleaned out the songbirds for now.

Yep that’ll definitely do it. We also thought it was our local Merlin hawk at first, but all of our goldfinches and house finches were still showing up everyday. I hope your sparrows come back this spring.