Restored habitat for struggling sparrows

The 100 or so tree sparrows live at a site near Jay House Lane at Clifton, Brighouse. Their favourite habitat is hedges.

In March last year the Calder dale Bird Conservation group and the Calderdale Countryside Service was granted a £6,323 funding boost from the SITA Trust to enable the planting of almost 500 new native scrub and tree saplings on site as well allowing the planting of almost 50 metres of new hedgerow.

Later this year the funding will enable an additional 200 metres of hedgerow to be restored along the roadside of the site which will be achieved by laying the established plants and where necessary, planting supplementary species to fill the gaps and increase the species diversity of the hedgerow.

It is hoped that the hedgerow restoration work and the additional tree and scrub cover will restore the local habitat and provide substantially more breeding and feeding areas as well as winter cover for the colony.

The work could also attract new migrating individuals into the area ensuring a sustainable gene pool and an increase in population numbers.

Calderdale Conservation Officer, Hugh Firman, said local residents and farmers had been helping to look after the birds by providing the right sort of habitat and food.

“The Calderdale Countryside Service and the Calderdale Bird Conservation would like to sincerely thank the local farmers and homeowners for their continued co-operation and support of the project. Without their permission the project could not have gone ahead,” he said.

Smaller than a house sparrow and more active, tree sparrows are also more shy.

The main population are now found across the Midlands, southern and eastern England.

It is almost absent from the south west, Wales and the north west.