As a child I remember, waking up to the twitter of little sparrows. The modest, brown-spotted, quaint birdies, had made the need of an alarm clock virtually redundant, filling the dawn sky with their sing-a-song tweets. As a student, whenever, I heard the truism – The early bird catches the worm – in my mind’s eye emerged this little sparrow with an earthworm in her beak! The sparrow was an integral part of my childhood, and my growing years.
They were always there – sometimes incurring my mother’s wrath, as they pecked on the wheat grains that she had spread out to dry in the sun. Or making her fret with the words, “It’s a bad omen!” when the electricity meter readers harshly tugged open the metal door that encased the meter, thus causing an egg to drop down from the sparrow nest built on the encasing. We used to be very unhappy with the untimely destruction of these eggs, but mostly we were greeted by tiny chirps that boasted the arrival of spindly-legged chicks.
When I moved to Delhi, I missed the house sparrows, but was greeted by another set of natural winged-inhabitants – 
the pigeons. These were so different from the sparrows that I had grown up with – they were large, grey, and messy and didn’t exactly have a sweet chirp. But soon there omnipresence became a part of my life in Delhi. Pigeons were everywhere, and like the sparrows made nests on the window sill, and under the installed air-conditioners. As nature conspires to maintain the delicate ecological balance, we saw the unwarranted destruction of pigeon eggs also, and sometimes even baby pigeons. The house-cat would also be the culprit, stealthily making our domestic pigeons their prey.
In spite of getting used to having domestic pigeons as our regular visitors, my first love was reserved for the house sparrows. But this December, when I went to my hometown, the sparrows were conspicuous by their absence. The house sparrow seemed to have disappeared. When I went to Church, I was happy to catch a glimpse of a few sparrows pecking at the flower-bed. They were less in number, but the Church garden and surrounding greenery had at least given the surviving few of the species a natural habitat. It was disheartening to see that the little sparrows were becoming a prey to the expansion of the human civilization.
While I mull over the memories of my little winged friends, I came across an article on www.timesofindia.com that also asked the pertinent question – Where have all the sparrows gone? The article states facts and figures to instill public sentiments towards saving this avian species. Through this blog, I would like to endorse the suggestion given by K.L. Mathews, associate professor in Junagadh Agriculture University (JAU) who has done a thesis on sparrows for his PhD – “We can start by providing artificial nest boxes so that a sparrow can come back to roost.”
Incidentally, there was another shocking article last year on www.dnaindia.com about how Sparrows are on the menu to whet libido . It was a horrifying article on how local hakims “… have claimed to have prepared a potion from the bird’s meat which works as an aphrodisiac.” and to meet the market demands, “… the birds are trapped from various parts of the city using nylon nets.” After the matter came to light, the Volunteers of the Plant and Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) have taken up the cause to save this near extinct species.
As a reader of this blog, if you can relate to my winged memories of the endangered house sparrow, and want your children to see and hear this little birdie in real, instead of picture books, perched next to the already extinct Dodo, then do your bit to welcome a little birdie home. If not a bird house, then a water or grain trough may do the trick. Helping to expand the green cover around your house and locality and minimizing noise and air pollution can also be conducive.
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agendra Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 6:16 PMYes I agree, sparrows are hard to find these days and so are the crows. Someone told me that the birds now have shorter life span due to the radiations emitted by cell phone towers. I don’t know if it is correct or not. I even tried placing bird-house and grain and water troughs in our house, these could attract ‘Bulbuls’ and other birds but not sparrows !! Sparrows formed an intergral part of our childhood… nests in fan caps and windows each summer!! Looking back…I miss them now that they are missing from the scene.
Vinnie Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 11:49 PMthis is shocking..i love sparrows too…good u reminded me of my long pending task…a little house for them
felinemusings Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 7:37 AM@Agendra – In the timesofindia article it said that sparrows can still be seen in the open areas – fields and villages. Maybe its the concrete jungle of the cities that has shoo-ed them away and now little treats cannot get them back to us!!
felinemusings Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 7:37 AM@Vinnie – you have a lovely blog, and a great idea for the sparrows
snigdha Says:
February 18th, 2009 at 12:21 PMNice photograph.:-)
My dad told me about the plight of the sprarrows many many years ago. Luckily the place where my parents stay in Delhi, there are lot of sparrows and they even come in our balcony and enjoy sitting on the cane chik that we have on our window. But you are right, gradually with all tress disappearing all birds, butterflies are going to be missing from the cityscape.
As a child I remember hearing peacocks, seeing them so almost every day in the dhaula kuan area before Metro got constructed. In summers when we sued to sleep on the terrace we used to hear the jackals and foxes howl. Moti Bagh had a lot of green area which is now missing so are the howls. Wonder what happened to those animals.
I also want my chiildren to grow up with these sweet memories. We try to feed the birds in Bangalore but obky big crows come to eat the food, I hardly get to see sparrows here.
snigdha Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 9:48 AMHave you seen the movie “Bees”?Today in the morning I saw about 1000-1500 bees lying dead infront of our office becuase they had broken the beehive that the bees had made in the building. Such high price to pay for maintaining the landscape of the office premises. Where will the bees go now that we have chopped off so many trees. It was a sorry sight ande I suddenly startee feeling so depressed
felinemusings Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 8:02 AM@Snigs, the photo in this blog of the two pigeons – changu and mangu, as I had christened them is taken in our balcony. We used to feed the mother, and waited in anticipation for the chicks. These little birdies seemed to be doing fine, till one day we discovered that they were dead. I was horrified and considering my own medical condition at that time, took it as a very bad omen. A few days later, we found the mother also dead close to the nest. I really wonder why they all perished. Is it something to do with global warming, high levels of pollution, unintended human intervention (maybe we passed on some virus as we were laying aside grain for them) – we will never know, and as always the question prevails, how to save the varied species of this world!!
Ritu Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 6:35 PMHi
Incidentally there is a pigeon nest on my window sill and most times I simply look at the mother perched on her two precious eggs and wonder about the instinct of being a mom!!! Im gonna blog about it soon…
felinemusings Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 9:05 PM@Ritu – do send me the link when you blog about it
barath Says:
February 25th, 2009 at 1:54 PMAt last here, sis after a long time, sat and read e few posts that i have missed here!! There’s one wonderful essay wrote by my ma’m ,”On the missing of sparrows, kids and grand-parents.” An essay on her childhood days, of how the big houses with pillars and swings, which are heavenly to children, sparrows and grand-parents love…
This article reminds me of that beautifully essay, which I wanted to translate for a long-time, will do that..
Hope you and jiju fine… Take care sis!!!
Sorry for being away from your space for a long while…
rahul Says:
February 27th, 2009 at 3:19 PMkudos to you for a nice article on such a noble cause!!!
felinemusings Says:
February 27th, 2009 at 8:41 PM@Rahul — good to see you visiting my blog and relating to this sensitive issue.
felinemusings Says:
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 PM@Barath – welcome back to my blog – wld love to read the essay that you mentioned – it sounds too tempting