Talking Dutch: A bird in the hand
Flanders’ Bird Protection Society has asked us to spend a few minutes in our gardens counting our feathered friends. Just watch out for those falcons…
Derek Blyth on counting your sparrows
But first I had to look up the house sparrow on Google to find out what I was meant to be counting. Not the most striking of our feathered friends, I have to say.
The event is organised by Vogelbescherming Vlaanderen, Flanders’ Bird Protection Society. De organisatie vraagt iedereen om in de tuin gedurende vijf tot tien minuten huismussen te tellen – The organisation asks everyone to stand in the garden for five to 10 minutes counting house sparrows.
Je plant je telmoment best in de ochtend, wanneer de huismussen het meest actief zijn – It’s best to set your bird counting session in the morning, when the house sparrow is at its most active.
So there I was standing in my little garden, notebook in hand, waiting for the birds to swoop. Nothing. Nothing. Wait! No, that’s a pigeon.
“We willen vooral een vergelijking kunnen maken tussen de plaatsen waar nog veel huismussen zitten, en de plaatsen waar dat niet het geval is” – “We particularly want to compare places where there are lots of house sparrows with places where that isn’t the case,” notes Inge Buntinckx of the Flanders House Sparrow Work Group.
Cute killers
“We willen kijken wat er verschilt in de omgeving, zodat we oorzaken kunnen zoeken waarom een gewone vogelsoort als de huismus het moeilijk heeft om te overleven” – “We want to examine what the differences are in the environments so we can find out what makes it difficult for an ordinary bird like the house sparrow to survive.”
I’m no bird expert, but I think I know the answer. A few weeks ago, I read in the newspaper that the peregrine falcons had returned to their perch in Brussels. Er broedt opnieuw een koppel slechtvalken op de kathedraal van Brussel – Once again, a peregrine falcon couple have bred in Brussels’ cathedral, read the report, excitedly.
I headed down to the cathedral to see what all the fuss was about. A small crowd had gathered in a cabin at the base of the cathedral’s tower to watch a live webcam feed from the nest (pictured). “Kijk, ze zijn zo lief” – “Look, aren’t they cute,” someone said, watching the mother feeding her four little chicks.
The guide explained that the falcons find their food in the area around the cathedral. They eat mice and small birds, including those silly green parakeets that are all over town.
I stood inside the hut looking at a display of bloodied feathers and broken bones of birds that had been recently slaughtered by the falcons. It was then I began to realise where all the little house sparrows might have gone.
