Help the tree sparrows in Carmarthenshire
People are being asked to help provide a vital winter food source for one of Carmarthenshire’s rarest breeding birds.
Volunteers are needed to feed the tree sparrows to help them through the winter season when food is scarce.
The tree sparrow may be mistaken for its more common cousin the house sparrow (tree sparrows have a distinctive brown cap and black spot on their cheeks).
The birds are rare, but the Tywi Valley is now host to the largest population in Wales of this ‘red-listed’ species.
Funding from the Countryside Council for Wales is helping volunteers, via the Carmarthenshire Biodiversity Partnership, to provide food.
Volunteers in the Tywi Valley have been helping out by feeding the birds each winter – vitally important to help the birds through this hard season.
The tree sparrows do not wander far from the valley floodplain. In the still or slow-flowing water found on the floodplain they can find the preferred insects that adults feed to the young during the summer.
Nest boxes at key sites have also helped the tree sparrows and provided a good opportunity to ring and monitor the birds.
Outside the breeding season, tree sparrows are dependent on seeds for food. Today natural sources of seed are less common and the volunteers feeding the birds help ensure that the tree sparrow population survives the winter to breed the following spring.
Biodiversity officer Isabel Macho said: “Often the action required to help a species is not complicated – here just providing a winter food source is helping ensure that this key population survives in the Tywi Valley.”
Volunteer Paul Metcalfe said: “I have been feeding the tree sparrows in my garden for years – the extra supply of seed has enabled me to continue feeding and monitoring their numbers – as the cold weather progressed I saw over 40 at my feeders.”
Anyone who spots tree sparrows is asked to let the partnership know by e-mailing Isabel Macho at IMacho@carmarthenshire.gov.uk.
Volunteers are needed to feed the tree sparrows to help them through the winter season when food is scarce.
The tree sparrow may be mistaken for its more common cousin the house sparrow (tree sparrows have a distinctive brown cap and black spot on their cheeks).
The birds are rare, but the Tywi Valley is now host to the largest population in Wales of this ‘red-listed’ species.
Funding from the Countryside Council for Wales is helping volunteers, via the Carmarthenshire Biodiversity Partnership, to provide food.
Volunteers in the Tywi Valley have been helping out by feeding the birds each winter – vitally important to help the birds through this hard season.
The tree sparrows do not wander far from the valley floodplain. In the still or slow-flowing water found on the floodplain they can find the preferred insects that adults feed to the young during the summer.
Nest boxes at key sites have also helped the tree sparrows and provided a good opportunity to ring and monitor the birds.
Outside the breeding season, tree sparrows are dependent on seeds for food. Today natural sources of seed are less common and the volunteers feeding the birds help ensure that the tree sparrow population survives the winter to breed the following spring.
Biodiversity officer Isabel Macho said: “Often the action required to help a species is not complicated – here just providing a winter food source is helping ensure that this key population survives in the Tywi Valley.”
Volunteer Paul Metcalfe said: “I have been feeding the tree sparrows in my garden for years – the extra supply of seed has enabled me to continue feeding and monitoring their numbers – as the cold weather progressed I saw over 40 at my feeders.”
Anyone who spots tree sparrows is asked to let the partnership know by e-mailing Isabel Macho at IMacho@carmarthenshire.gov.uk.
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