GOOD news comes in threes, they say. Like these three birds at Dúlra’s water font – two sparrows and a greenfinch. You could say it’s nothing too unusual, but you don’t live in Dúlra’s street. Since Dúlra moved in about a decade ago it's been a sparrow-free zone. That homely tweet that many readers are so familiar with they no longer notice is absent here. While there are sparrows in all the surrounding areas, Dúlra’s street has been a sparrow desert. He knows why. It’s nothing to do with the access to food for Dúlra and his neighbours must be among the most generous bird feeders in the city. In fact, we attract so many birds that almost every day the sparrowhawk comes down from his mountain roost on a bullet-like raid, scattering terrified prey like a fighter pilot strafing the innocents. And Dúlra even put up two sets of sparrow ‘terrace’ nestboxes, which have laid empty for years. Dúlra knows the reason there are no sparrows – it's the builder’s fault for being too good at his job. Every crevice in every roof has been rigidly filled in, leaving no nooks or crannies for sparrows to nest in. A few winters back one male sparrow arrived, then last spring a pair hung about the area before disappearing to nest elsewhere. But this month, suddenly, we had not just a pair of sparrows, but an invasion. They arrived with their chicks in tow – ready-made families – about a dozen birds in total. The chicks are a sheer delight as they follow their parents’ every move, flapping their fluffy wings and begging for food.
