[NatureNS] Re:Lack of House Sparrows

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:07:44 -0500
From: "Laviolette, Lance (EXP)" <lance.laviolette@lmco.com>
To: "naturens@chebucto.ns.ca" <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Thread-Topic: Lack of House Sparrows
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Hi Don,

Don MacNeill wrote:
"We have about 20 visiting our feeders daily in Halifax.  The numbers have been coming back over the last few years."
 
The local population around your area may have risen over the last few years but this is not the case province wide. Here are the trends for Nova Scotia from both the Christmas bird counts and the breeding bird surveys.

The trend on Nova Scotia Christmas counts of the last 50 years:
In the early 1960s House Sparrows were being reported at a rate between 25-28 birds per party hour. During the 1970s and 1980s this number had dropped by about 60% to between 5-10 birds per party hour. In the last ten years the number has never been higher than 2 birds per party hour with last year's count producing about 1.2 birds per party hour. This represents about a 95% drop in the House Sparrow population in Nova Scotia over the last 50 years. 

The breeding bird survey trends of the last 40 years shows a similar decline. The mean annual percent change over this period in the House Sparrow population is almost 5%. In other words, every year for almost 40 years the population has decreased an average of 5% from the previous year. What that means is that this data indicates that the population is only about 13% of what it was 40 years ago.

All the best,

Lance

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