How Essential?

It’s better to stop them completely rather than create something alien to them JM20. Evolution has given them the tools to allow both them & Their progeny a good chance of survival, your good hearted attempts won’t help them in the short nor long term. If you block them before they start they will migrate to a similar place without issue to yourself. I suffered similar issues & attached narrow gauge wire to stop them. My Dogs & neighbours cats looked on newly fledged chicks as toys, I found that natural yes but I was part of the problem I didn’t like so I took steps to end it.

PS-their must be a dearth of nesting sites if Blackbirds nest away from Tree cover, I have never in my lifetime found a Blackbird nest away from trees or bushes thanks for the info👍🏻

Sometimes when a roof needs retiling the situation changes, our neighbours had jackdaws under their tiles (a very old building) but recent roof repairs have made the jackdaws look elsewhere. I don't know how the neighbours put up with the noise Jackdaws make but they did. There is usually alternative accommodation around.  Quite a few of us locally have bats in our roofs and the bats are protected. If you can put up with the Sparrows all well and good plus a nest box or two to encourage new homes, it's all a compromise. If you've got good habitat around hopefully your visitors, if they can't use your roof will find new places to nest. But try not to disturb active nests, wait till the fledglings have gone. 

If the sparrows are going under the tiles, it will be cooler under there, and I doubt that even with the best of intentions, you could replicate a cool enough box for them slightly lower down. Can I ask what your garden is like, because we have hundreds of resident sparrows, and they simply love the hedges, shrubs and trees we have? We also have non invasive shrubs such as Pyracantha, dense Clematis going up the house, and again we get nesting birds in this rather than invading the roof eaves. (Used by Blackbirds, Robins and Wrens as well.) 

If the eaves overhang enough, you could try a Sparrow terrace under there? 

We are very fortunate, as all the gardens around us have mixed hedging, lots of trees and shrubs, so we do get lots of sparrows and dunnocks, as well as other residents and visitors. Garden fencing, just bare is easy maintenance, but is possibly one of the worst culprits for losing bird life. Putting climbers up it, and planting some nice shrubs helps, but they do love a decent mixed hedge as it gives them all they need to thrive. We don’t cut our hedges either between April and September, I just hand prune a bit carefully during this period. Titchmarsh and Dimmock have a lot to answer for with their ruddy Ground Force programme of years ago. All that fencing and decking, brilliant for rats, but terrible for birds, hedgehogs etc….☹️

I doubt you will have a problem with them finding other places to nest/roost John, but good on you for providing an alternative. Best of luck with it😁

Yes Rocky, some of the stuff I prune needs Kevlar gloves😱 I spend time de thorning my hands at times, but great for security. I have a couple of roses that are better than barb wire.

Are you enjoying your stove?. I struggle with not lighting it as soon as I get up unless we are out then I just set it for our return👍🏻. I will miss winter when it’s finally done, a stove so makes winter bearable.  

We love it, but then I was brought up in a home with open fires, and we only did a year in this house without an open fire. 38 years this month in this, our only house. We had a big Spanish basket in our big open hearth for 27 years, we could burn some big logs on there, but we always let it go out overnight for safety, and used a fire Screen as well. When OH retired, we forked out for a big stove, had chimney lined and got into the wood burn groove properly. We are fortunate to have some big trees in our garden and neighbour gardens, so are seldom short of wood to burn, got a great collect, cut, store/dry system in place. We have taken to picking up a couple of supermarket bag for life stick collections most dog walks in our local woods, as there is just so much wood lying around, and it’s ready to burn after a week or so drying in greenhouse. Big logs are thrown into Jeep as well🤣 We actually enjoy cutting and storing it, the exercise and effort does us good. I love thwacking at stuff with a big axe, but haven’t used chain saw yet. We burn smokeless as well just to get a good ash bed, but it doesn’t cost much and warms most of house. I know what you mean about lighting it in day, soon gets things warm. I only put heating on for an hour before heading up to bed, and it’s on for an hour in morning as well at the moment.  Wouldn’t be without it, so cosy😁

We're not lucky enough to have Swifts and Swallows either but neighbours have them. Some of the new houses in our village were built with overhangs on their roofs and the Swallows have returned year after year when previously they used the modern barns which were demolished for the new housing. Forward thinking at it's best. 

Good to hear so many have plenty of birds.

We had a similar problem with field mice last year, we got them out with humane traps and relocated them back to the fields. We were able to reduce the gaps that let them in...quite a palaver up in the loft every day.