Look smart, work hard and the girls will notice!

WOW - what a good looking guy!

Hey guys, it appears that if you want to attract a female and have lots of children with her, you had better put on your best bib and tucker and feather one’s own nest as much as possible – well, that is if you are a male house sparrow!!

 An international team lead by the University of Granada has found that female sparrows will invest more energy into laying eggs according to the male's ability to fill the nest with feathers which serve to insulate the chicks from the cold and keep them alive.

Lola García López de Hierro, (what a great name!) the study's main researcher, stated “we were able to conclude that the more feathers in the nest, the more eggs the sparrows laid!"

I didn’t know that apparently 90% of sparrows mate for life and keep the same partner from one year to the next; however, numerous factors influence the choice of mating partner. For example, the size of the black patch on the males' chest, commonly known as the bib, indicates their biological quality. "The bigger the patch, the higher the quality, an aspect that females can easily select for," the scientist explained.

I’m sitting here writing this in an old pair of jeans and a jumper full of holes – so I suppose I had better go and smarten myself up!