The Lough Neagh Wetlands Tree Sparrow Project

This is a partnership project with farmers and landowners in the Lough Neagh Wetlands to help the nationally threatened tree sparrow population. The aim of the project is to increase awareness and improve survival conditions for wintering and breeding tree sparrows. The project is providing 70 winter feeding stations and up to 2000 nest boxes in the Lough Neagh Wetlands. Local volunteers will be recruited and trained to help maintain and monitor nest boxes, operate and monitor feeding stations, and help us carry out a full Lough Neagh Wetlands Tree Sparrow Survey in 2008. The results of the project will be used to help advise and inform farmers and landowners about creating and managing habitat for tree sparrows.

“The tree sparrow has declined by 95% per cent in the last 40 years,” said Paul Lynas, RSPB’s Priority Species officer. “The RSPB and the Lough Neagh Advisory Committee are keen to find out what would help these birds recover and Lough Neagh, one of the last remaining strongholds of the tree sparrow, was really the best place to start.”

Seamus Burns, LNAC’s Local Biodiversity Officer, said, “Tree sparrows appear to favour farmland close to water and this is evident by the number of birds present in the Lough Neagh wetlands. However, we are going to test this theory by providing suitable nesting and feeding habitats along waterways to see if we can encourage them to spread out to new areas. If we can, then this will help inform future management of farmland habitat for the species.”

The tree sparrow is a farmland bird, and like the yellowhammer, subsists on grain in the winter and insects in the summer. It relies on healthy hedgerows, field margins and grass seeds. It also frequents arable fields. Lough Neagh is an ideal place for it as the wet shoreline is rich in insect food, which it would use to feed its young during the summer. The main cause of its decline is the intensification in agriculture and the disappearance of arable fields due to EU policy.

The tree sparrow is on a ‘red list’, meaning that if the decline of this once common bird continues, it may mean certain extinction. The RSPB is keen to point out that how bird populations are faring indicate the state of the environment and that we should all be concerned if bird numbers fall to dangerously low levels.

Tree sparrow feeding station’s protective cages

Winter feeding stations are providing supplementary feeding for the Tree sparrow in the Lough Neagh Wetlands. A problem encountered early into to project was the predation of crows and jackdaws for the grain. To solve this, staff from Northstone (NI) Ltd Concrete Division at Toomebridge designed a cage-like structure to be placed over the feeding stations, stopping the crows and jackdaws taking the grain as the mesh size restricts them and they are probably too suspicious to enter.

The Lough Neagh Tree Sparrow Project Group would like to thank the staff of Northstone (NI) Ltd Concrete Division for their valued assistance and acknowledge Mackle Builders’ Merchants Toomebridge for the supply of materials.

Gregg Simpson (right) of Northstone (NI) Ltd Concrete Division shows Seamus Burns, Lough Neagh Wetlands Biodiversity Officer the cage designs before delivering them to several feeding locations around the Lough.

For more information about the project, go to www.loughneagh.com/biodiversity.htm