World Sparrow Day

I have been aware of World Sparrow Day initiative for the past two years, but I have no idea what possessed me not to make a post about it in my blog. Actually, I do have a vague idea that it had something to do with my laziness (about which I’m not going to elaborate, mostly because I’m feeling quite lazy to write about it and most likely you might not be interested). But, I feel badly ashamed now, because even after loving House Sparrows so dearly I didn’t care to dedicate even a small blog post to these chirpy little sweethearts and attempt to present the deplorable situation on how their number is so rapidly declining in India where, once upon a time, they used to soar blue skies in huge flocks. But, this year I decided to put aside my laziness a little for some time, just so I could come up with a neat and nice entry about why I love these birds, and why large-scale initiatives are made to save them.

Why I love House Sparrows

When I was young my mum had hung a mirror beside a window. A pair of House Sparrow used to come daily to inquire the obscurity of that mirror by pecking it, sometimes furiously, and at times lazily. It was a strange object to them that they could play with, without getting bored. And, it was not just the mirror that intrigued them so much, there was a treat to allure them too. We had come to love those birds so dearly that we used to sprinkle rice grains around the window sill every day. They used to come every morning, and if windows were latched they demanded us to open it by pecking it as if knocking a door to be opened with familiar authority, a thing we do so often when we return home. After some time, I don’t remember after how long, when a violent storm hit our hometown, that mirror fell and cracked. The birds still came often to pay us a visit, playing around ceiling fan or just flying around the room chirping in and out till evening (freaking my eldest sister with their sudden entrance and departure, much to our amusement) as if trying to tell us that they loved to be around us regardless of that worthless mirror.
Their memories are still fresh in my mind. Whenever I close my eyes to recall those birds I feel warm and love flowing through me. They remind me of home, of comfort. If you find a house echoing with chirps of House Sparrows and find their nest in one of its nooks or crannies, that place can suitably be called a home filled with love, warmth, comfort, peace and security because even after being not-so-afraid of humans sparrows do not trust us easily enough to build nest in our house. They are gregarious birds alright and a family of house sparrows can create a great commotion to your great annoyance, but you will bear with them and love them all the same; because they also know how to be mellow and sweet and simply keep you company when you want silence and peace. But, they can’t help tweeting or chirruping once or twice because it is as if they can’t refrain from asking you of your well-being. Once you are aware of their presence around you, whether it’s a nest in one of the mango trees near your veranda or their nestling twittering on top of one of your cupboards, you start getting amused with their activities. Soon your curiosity gets better of you, and you try to know more about them; you try to befriend them by littering broken rice or chapatti crumbs to attract them and see them peck ‘n play that you can easily watch for hours and hours. Personally, as I’ve spent so much of free, lousy childhood time watching these birds, I’ve come to believe that House Sparrows are healers. They pass on their vibrant, warm energy to you with their mere presence that can heal your heart of unknown ailments. All you have got to do is to realise their presence and that is all it takes to be loved, to be filled with warmth and to be healed.

The need to save birds

For the past few years the population of House Sparrows has been declining rapidly. While being able to survive in wild easily enough, House Sparrows have well-casted their life style in accordance with human towns and cities and lived among us as our friendly next-door neighbours or forced visitor-cum-residents in our own house as far back as we can remember. Not only is it easier for them to find good food sources around humans but it is also much secure to built nests away from wild predators in human houses where humans either do not bother with them or befriend with them. And, yet even after having sparrows around us they don’t seem to be as happy as they used be in their halcyon days. There was a time when watching huge flock of sparrows performing sky acrobatics in evenings was a favourite pass-time of folks in villages, towns and cities. But, now all we get to see is a few sparrows tweeting meekly behind bushes and branches. In fact, it’s not only House Sparrows that we should be concerned about; our common Indian birds don’t seem to be as common anymore as they used to be. Why is it so? Their decline can’t be attributed to a single factor. While, the natural habitats of birds are destroyed at large scale every year to construct roads, apartments and the like, it’s also said that the increasing use of mobile networks hugely affect birds. The excessive use of pesticides in crop fields affects birds too, because crops act as an important food source to many species. Thus, it’s important to not only identify the causes that challenge the survival of different species of birds, but also to come up with solutions that people can apply at both individual as well community level. For example, setting up bird feeder in gardens, parks, balconies and such places can attract different species of birds. Bird feeders may become their prime food source and play an important role to their survival. Similarly, bird baths can be set-up in localities for birds to have access to water easily in scorching summer. People can also put ‘ghada’ and such for medium-sized birds such as Common Pigeons, Spotted Doves or they can build or buy wooden nest-boxes that come in variety of sizes for House Sparrows, Rose-ringed parakeets, Common Pigeons etc. In public places such as clear-grounds, people can litter rice grains or bread crumbs for birds. There are many, many other ways to help birds that we can come up with, if only we are keen enough to save them and watch them soar sky in huge flocks again.

The organisation and its initiative

World Sparrow Day is an initiative started by Nature Forever Society and is celebrated on 20th March every year to create awareness about declining number of sparrows and other birds, in general. Every year, a specific theme is chosen to motivate people so that they can help these chirpy little birds in simple yet effective way. The Nature Forever Society itself works relentlessly towards making people aware about common Indian birds: how these birds have their life intricately woven with our life, how their population is declining everyday due to numerous reasons and how people can come up with ways to save them.