Since ancient times, the sparrows have turned the trees of the Rambla into their place of refuge and rest, not only at night. I suspect that they were immediately attracted by the fact that this important thoroughfare was generously planted with trees; in the walled city there was no other assembly so dense and attractive. But it didn’t happen from the first day, but when the shadow bananas finally took root strongly and definitively; so to this day and may it last, since in various periods there were repeated temptations to cut them down.
It was preferable for this species to populate the branch rather than the pigeons: they would have soiled the whole place with their droppings.
The citizens soon became accustomed to their presence, and did not attach any importance to them; not even poets, more attracted and inspired by flowers. I believe that the presence of the birders also favored it, since when setting up and dismantling the sales stands (the fixed booths were not planted until 1968) they left traces of food on the ground.
“An hour later I’m in the heat of the Rambla (…) Between the stream of trees, where a million sparrows chirp and chatter, goes the human river, in an unrestrained movement”. It had to be an outsider, then, who sang to them; and in this case it was one of the greats: Rubén Darío, with one of his passionate Barcelona proses.
The discretion that characterizes sparrows makes them go unnoticed. A reader made me discover that they also populate Plaça Catalunya so dominated by pigeons; he called me at five in the afternoon. Just by approaching, they recognized him and approached to peck at what he offered them daily.
It was during the endless pandemic that we caught a glimpse of them for the first time and at any time when we were drawn to streets that have never been so deserted and never so quiet.
The master photographer Català-Roca explained to me that when he tried to capture them in his tree-lined stands on the Rambla, he recognized that they appeared at night, which forced him to incorporate the help of the flash. Being so reluctant to use such an artefact, since it distorted the own atmosphere that at that moment offered under natural light, he had no other choice but to capture them earlier and with less presence.
