House Sparrow - 1994

Breeding resident

Mathew (1894) said of the House Sparrow that it was "a common resident but rather scarce in the mountain districts" while Lockley et al. (1949) considered it was "not numerous", being absent from some villages. Today it is found throughout Pembrokeshire in close association with man's settlements, being absent from woodland and the mountain tops. House Sparrows are not usually found on the offshore islands, but they have bred on Ramsey (Lockley et al.) and on Skomer, in 1965 and 1966, and were resident on Caldey until about 1985, since when they have become sporadic. They are well distributed about the towns but sparse in many rural areas, in which they become concentrated where non-intensive poultry rearing makes an abundance of food available, Llanfallteg West being a good example. They flock around the fields and hedges during the autumn. An estimate of eight pairs per tetrad in rural and 40 pairs per tetrad in urban areas gives a county population of about 3,500 pairs.

House Sparrows wander as far out as Skokholm, where they were recorded in 34 years between 1933 and 1992, but have not been recorded from any of the remoter isles.

Fieldwork 1984-88 (based on 478 tetrads) 

Red = breeding confirmed = 266

Orange = breeding probable = 50

Yellow = breeding possible = 55

Total tetrads in which registered = 371 (77.6%)

Donovan J.W. & Rees G.H (1994), Birds of Pembrokeshire