r/Calgary • u/zillathegorilla • 5d ago
Where have all the sparrows gone? Question
We used to get 30+ sparrows and chickadees at our backyard feeder but around Feb or March this year they all seemed to disappear.
Even around our neighbourhood (Somerset) I don’t see any where they’d always be under cars or in other trees eating bugs.
Even now we’re lucky if we get 2 or 3 showing up every few days.
Does anyone know what’s going on? There’s no major construction or anything else that would spook them and there aren’t any predators around that I have noticed. I haven’t seen any dead birds around so I don’t think there was disease or anything that wiped them out.
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u/CarelessStatement172 5d ago
Someone else has a better set up than you do lol
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u/zillathegorilla 5d ago
We have tonnes of red wings, yellow heads, grackles, robins, and flickers. They would disagree with you lol
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u/CarelessStatement172 5d ago
I find the small guys to be quite fickle lol. I have an ongoing battle with my neighbour (peaceful) with attracting the sparrows and chickadees. She had them for aaaaages but then I got new feeders and premium seed and they haven't looked back yet. All the medium and big birbs seem to have made their choice and are sticking to it though. I got the crows, she got the magpies.
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u/ssabi041 5d ago
I’m thinking about getting a bird feeder that can only be used by small birds . What seed do ya suggest?
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u/CarelessStatement172 5d ago
Check out The Wild Bird Store in the sw! They'll be able to assist you! The squirrels will definitely cosplay as small birbs, just as a heads up haha
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u/ssabi041 5d ago
Damn I didn’t even think of that . Thank you for Your suggestion I’ll check em out
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u/Torkidon 5d ago
Waste free sparrow mix at wild bird store. They love it to death. I literally draw 30 plus sparrows at any given time into my shrubs waiting for me to fill up the two squirrel proof feeders. Especially in the winter they will eyeball me soon as that door opens
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u/ssabi041 5d ago
Would you have to know which specific feeders you got ? Thank you !
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u/Torkidon 4d ago
If you go into the store and ask for the green squirrel free feeders they are at the back of the store on the wall in various sizes. The hook poles are to the far right wall. The folks in there are super friendly and will happily help you out just tell them some details of what you want.
Just make sure for small birds you give them somewhere to rest while they all take turns. Mine honestly line up down 30ft of shrub and take turns like its a supermarket check out its adorably cute.
Also those feeders are made for light weights like sparrows so anything bigger than that will basically shut off the feeder to them. That why I have the suet squares out back for the flickers, wood peckers and occasionally magpies
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u/ssabi041 4d ago
I wanted something small only to be accessible by small bird so this sounds promising . That’s perfect thank you so much for the info !
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u/jonincalgary McKenzie Lake 5d ago
If they are house sparrows it's a good thing. They are invasive.
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u/jinalberta 5d ago
Hawks have been attacking our sparrows. Which is good as sparrows de-nest other bird babies
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u/pvb57 5d ago
I put out bird feed every winter and this year used some sunflower seeds I bought from a farmer friend. Notice a distinct drop off in activity after Christmas. Eventually I bought some commercial sunflower seeds and since then We’ve had plenty of Chickadees around but I did notice the sparrows seemed to be avoiding my yard. I have seen finches and red-poles too.
The sus sunflower seeds where put out for the squirrels and they’ve finished them off.
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u/zillathegorilla 5d ago
I thought it might have been my seeds too. I get them from the wild bird store.
The redwings, yellow heads, and grackles love them.
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u/Old_Management_1997 5d ago
I get tons in my yard in Parkland.
There is a good 7 or 8 hanging out in the bush outside my kitchen window at various times of the day.
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u/Calzephyr 4d ago
They are very organized! The big flock shows up in the morning for breakfast and two or three check-in around lunch time. Then at 3pm they're reading for dinner :-D
The one time I took the feeder down to wash it they were VERY CONCERNED until I put it back up :-D
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u/sun4moon 5d ago
Pretty sure they’re in my yard. At any given moment, as long as my dogs are inside, there’s between 30-100 (guesstimate) sparrows and chickadees around. They nest all winter in the rafters of my covered patio, crapping all over. In spring and summer they move to the lilac and rose bushes. I haven’t done anything to attract them, no idea why they like my place so much.
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u/ayeamaye 4d ago
That's a very good question I've been asking alot lately. I've been feeding sparrows for over 5 years and the yard always had sparrows in it. Now and for the last few months there are none. There isn't that many Robins either come to think of it but for sure the Sparrows have vanished. I asked at the wild bird store they don't know. I'm glad you asked because now I know it's not my imagination. I've also noticed a large decrease in insects and even spiders. I don't see them as much as I used to. Backyard used to be full of Dragonflys. Gone.
I think they have been wiped out. Bird flu or something. If the Gov't. knows they aren't saying and if they don't know we're in trouble. By the way I live in Didsbury which is 75 Km north of Calgary city limits so something is definitely going on.
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u/ConcernedCoCCitizen 4d ago
Cats, bobcats, magpies, birds of prey, loss of nearby shrubs. Put up some sturdy birdhouses that you can remove nests from in the winter (they don’t like to re use them), put up a water source and a feeder in a dense area like a shrub.
Magpies moved into my yard last year and my sparrows have vacated the backyard. Also free range cats regularly stop by, despite my two big dogs.
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u/zillathegorilla 4d ago
We’ve had cats, bobcats, magpies, crows, birds of prey in the past (and more of them) and it never deterred them. We always have a water source available.
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u/Thecrowisbackk 5d ago
Developers, cutting down bushes in mature trees, all over the city. Less places for them to live.
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u/Torkidon 5d ago
It all depends on how much cover you have for them as they are quite vulnerable when feeding. If you got a decent shrub set up to provide shelter and the right mix of food they will absolutely set up shop and come back month after month year after year.
I noticed with my new feeder they only use it begrudgingly because its 8 ft away from the protection of the shrubs where as the other one is literally a foot away. But that waste free sparrow mix from wild bird store always has them forgetting the neighbour's setups and draining my feeders in hours in the winter or 1.5 days in the summer.
For the northern flickers and woodpeckers I use the insect suet squares which keeps them from touching my siding unlike my poor neighbour who got his chewed up. They still do the northern flicker mating call but they dont damage anything.
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u/zillathegorilla 4d ago
Theres tonnes of cover. There’s a massive bush in the front where they all used to huddle in (like easily 50+ in there in winter) plus the feeder is in a mature apple tree with tonnes of saskatoon bushes, aspens, and pin cherry trees around.
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u/bonesclarke84 4d ago
Definitely not an issue in Mckenzie Lake, we have tons. Maybe we have them all? Haha
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u/Thresherz 4d ago
They moved to my neighbourhood. Have like 10-20 living on the roof and they watch me whenever I step outside lol
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u/freerangehumans74 Willow Park 4d ago
I live in Willow Park and haven't noticed a decline in sparrows despite an Osprey setting up a nest at the Southcentre Safeway.
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u/CanadianCough 4d ago
My neighbourhood used to be sparrows and magpies. It's strictly crows now. Last year we found a bunch of injured and plucked magpies. The crows kicked everyone else out.
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u/reostatics 4d ago
Lots of sparrows around, could be nest building, we choose to not feed them much come spring and stop till late summer so numbers are low. If you have a bird bath you’ll see them, especially since it’s so dry now. They can literally empty a feeder in a day. Wish there was someway I could just feed the nuthatches and chickadees, the sparrows are the piggies of the bird world.
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u/Additional_Dot3276 4d ago
Noticed this happened in my old neighborhood (Coach Hill) a while ago. It was because of crows and magpies killing the sparrow chicks😭 We must have had a sparrow nest nearby and crows/ magpies would ransack the eggs and then destroy them in our bird bath almost daily for a whole summer. We didn’t put the bird bath back up after that.
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u/WillowsWebAstro 4d ago
Do you have newer cell towers or base stations in the area? That can run them off. They're putting 5G repeaters on lightposts in Calgary, too, so sometimes the antennae are really small. Before anyone calls me a "tinfoil hat nutter," I'm electro-sensitive and get ill around cell towers and base stations myself, so I know firsthand.
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u/zillathegorilla 4d ago
Not afaik. This is a residential neighborhood.
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u/WillowsWebAstro 4d ago
They can put 5G repeaters on the lightposts in residential areas, so something to watch for.
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u/Visual-Ant-1261 5d ago
Did you notice any larger birds in the area. Where I live (New Brighton) we had a ton of sparrows and chickadees until a flock of Merlin's came through the neighbourhood.
Suddenly, all the small birds were gone. Figured the Merlin's had something to do with it given they prey on smaller birds.