The jaunty ten-a-penny house sparrow of my London childhood is in decline, according to a recent RSPB survey. It’s serious too. Numbers in Britain have fallen by 68 per cent since 1977.

So I feel privileged to see them regularly in my garden, and even more pleased to hear them chattering in their chipper way. I know why I see them here. We have a healthy colony thanks to a series of old buildings with old-fashioned roofs.

In summer, the birds fly under the eaves, something that’s almost impossible with modern building regulations. But that’s only part of the story.

I used to live in Northamptonshire, and my garden there attracted tree creepers, flycatchers and white throats. This was all down to my aged neighbour, Mrs Vyse, who was too frail to garden.

Weeds and seeds abounded. When old age claimed her, the garden was cleared, and my bird numbers dropped overnight.

One of the hardest facts to get over is how vital tiny insects are to fledgeling birds too young to manage the nuts and seeds most of us offer.

Blue tits need to collect 10,000 invertebrates to feed their brood in three weeks. Bird food alone will not sustain them. The new three-year research project, which looked at house sparrows in Leicester and surrounding villages, found that many chicks died within four days of hatching.

The study linked these deaths to diet. Chicks that ate few insects had poor rates of survival. In contrast, those reared where aphids were abundant were more likely to survive. So the greatest gift any gardener could give the sparrow (and all other wildlife) is an insecticide-free environment.

Please don’t spray aphids and other pests. Learn to see them as a valuable link in the food chain of desirable creatures.

The more insects, the better, and as insects prefer native plants, the other great gift is to plant some natives. Whether it’s a hawthorn hedge or a native woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum) or garden plants with native provenance. These include meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense) and field scabious (Knautia arvensis).

Other seed-producing and fruit plants will encourage birds to visit too, and they include the teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, which is particularly enjoyed by goldfinches. Verbascums, evening primroses and seed-forming hardy geraniums (like G. phaeum) are also visited by other finches. Hips, berries and haws are also important.

The report also blamed concrete and decking for their decline, as well as the Leyland conifer. I can’t agree with the last of these. For when I removed my huge conifer hedge my bird life plummeted overnight.

A few days later, I acquired Robert Burton’s Nature Notes. The opening paragraph on the first page started with Leyland hedges, and outlined their invaluable role in gardens.

I have always wished that I had left one or two standing as bird shelters.