Featherweights fight for fair share

AS I prepare my bird buffet every morning there is a mad rush from various large pigeons and jackdaws.

- ALAN WRIGHT

Then there are the smaller blackbirds and starlings, but they are still big if you are a sparrow. Yet my garden sparrows and dunnocks hold their own in this melee, bobbing and weaving like flyweight boxers among the heavyweights, which can't do anything about the nimble-footed little ones grabbing the seed.

Sparrows are common in our gardens but we need to look after them, only a few years ago they were absent from parks in some of our cities. I cannot imagine a walk in the town or countryside without this iconic bird.