In Europe, the case of the missing sparrows
It is almost as if they were tired of being taken for granted.
Common house sparrows, symbols of European city life, have almost disappeared from some of the Continent's capitals, and nobody has the slightest idea why.
In central London, where cheeky "cockney sparrows" once flocked to eat crumbs from peoples' hands, there is not a sparrow to be seen today.
In Amsterdam, the little gray and brown birds no longer cock their heads by the sides of the city's canals. The grimy north German port of Hamburg, the urban habitat par excellence for man's closest avian companion, is now a sparrow-free zone.
They have faded from the landscape without anybody paying attention.
"You don't notice common species because they are around you all the time, and then suddenly they aren't there any more," says bird expert Rosie Cleary. Dubbed Britain's "sparrow czar," she has just taken charge of a nationwide survey of the sparrow population for the British Trust for Ornithology.
Sparrows are seen fondly in European eyes. Cockney East Enders in London took the diminutive, resilient "sparrer" to their hearts, and the French singer Edith Piaf, who grew up in the streets of Paris, was nicknamed "Kid Sparrow."
The mystery of the sparrow's disappearance from so many European cities is all the more baffling because the bird is still found in normal numbers in other metropolitan areas, such as Berlin.
"The most fascinating thing about the situation is that it is by no means uniform across Europe," says Denis Summers-Smith, a British ornithologist who has been studying sparrows for half a century and who first raised the alarm.
That would seem to assuage the fears of those who have suggested that the sparrow could be the canary of modern urban life, warning us of hidden dangers. But it does not help explain the phenomenon.
Britain, where the sparrow is now on the "red list" of species in danger, has seen the most dramatic decline in numbers. Where 12 million pairs nested 30 years ago, there are no more than seven million pairs today - a drop of 10 million birds. And central London has suffered the most.
In Kensington Gardens, 2,603 house sparrows were counted in 1925.
Last year just four males were left, and this summer they moved on.
"In big towns, the population went into freefall around 1990, and there is no evidence that it is stabilizing," says Dr. Summers-Smith.
Questions have been asked in Parliament. A national newspaper has offered a reward of $8,000 for anyone who can solve the mystery of the missing sparrow. The British Trust for Ornithology is calling on thousands of volunteers across the country to report on sparrows they see over the next 18 months, to try to clarify what is happening.
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