Coming back from an early morning stroll on the beach – there I meet the mysterious dropper-off-of-bread for the sparrows.
Quite regularly there’s several packets worth of bread sitting on a steep grass verge. Great flocks chattering & chirping over it!
The bread seems to just appear regularly of it’s own accord(?)
Then the other morning there was the guy out of his bread truck, shaking out the left-over bags. He said he likes the sparrows to get the bread first, before the seagulls arrive.
Tiu (the house sparrow) were released here with high hopes, 1866 – 1871. Brought in from Europe (mainly England), they were to control insects on newly-planted crops.
That’s not what happened. Instead they ate up the farmer’s seeds. Gobbling up wheat, barley & maize!
You would have thought they’d be unpopular after that. But there we are – opening up packets of wheat, barley & corn bread, just for them.
No wonder that bird likes living around humans!
In Cloak of Protection tiu, the house sparrow, is hunted by cat & stoat.