Sparrow on cable wire

Sparrow admiring mirror image !

Bhopal, Pic courtesy - Mujeeb Faruqui

Enjoying with water in Bhopal's garden!

World House Sparrow day and Holi greetings !

Where have all the sparrows gone?

IANS, Dushyant Parasher : For a long, long time, the chubby, chirpy house sparrow lived in our midst aplenty. Now, you can't find them in the urban environment any more. All this has happened in a span of just a few years.  India is not the only place where the sparrows have disappeared from the cities.

In the Netherlands, they are already an endangered species. In Britain, their population is dropping at such an alarming rate that they are now in the red list as a species of 'high conservation concern'.  In France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Finland, the story is not very different.

This is an environmental alarm bell at its loudest.

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a common bird that millenniums ago originated in the Mediterranean and came into Europe and Asia with the spread of agriculture. It was carried across the Atlantic in mid-19th century as a friend, to help clean up green inchworms from the trees of New York's Central Park.

It was the most widely distributed species of the world.

Today it is suddenly disappearing in the urban environment. What this translates into is that the modern urbanization has reached a level where it can trigger the extinction of a species. In the past, when the cities were small and there were villages around, with agricultural land around them, these were vast lungs of open spaces that separated the urban and the rural, constantly replenished the air.

In the fields there were occasional clusters of indigenous fruit trees and bushes that were ideal nesting places for a number of birds including sparrows. At such places, there was also a pond that got filled each year with the monsoon spillover from the entire region. In the fields and the grazing lands there were thorny bushes and trees that provided safe nesting havens for sparrows and other small birds that kept the area clean of insects. The insects made ideal infant food for their young ones.

For the first 15 days of their life, house sparrow offsprings live entirely on these juicy morsels. In those days, the crop was harvested and gathered at one place where the grain was separated from the chaff, giving ample time to the sparrow to take their share for their pest control services rendered to the farmer.

When the harvest moved to the open grain markets, the birds still had a chance to peck at it. Back in the household when women cleaned the grain in courtyards, sparrows were always a constant companion, feeding on the stray seeds of weeds that were separated and discarded. As fields, bushes, tree clusters, marshes and the water bodies disappear, they are being replaced by urban dwellings, watertight pavements and roads. Naturally, only some habitants of the erstwhile eco-system are able to survive.

With no food or safe nesting, birds perish or migrate to more agreeable habitat.

In the absence of smaller birds that feed on them, insects such as maggots and flies thrive and carry disease to the human dwellings. It is not the first time the house sparrows have been ousted from cities. In the early 20th century when Europe started shifting from horse-driven transport to motorised vehicles, the house sparrow population in many cities is said to have declined by two-third. The cause cited was the lack of cereal fed to the horses in the open -- a key food supply for birds.

Today the reasons for the sparrows' decline are largely electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones and lack of insect food due to excessive use of pesticide in urban gardens. But most certainly, it is the loss of habitat that drives any species towards extinction.

Our gardens and parks are hardly any habitat for birds. In an open canopy environment with broom cleaned floor, there is neither nesting material nor food or security from predators. Can we not think of 'Mini Forests' within the urban set-up? These should have little ponds to collect the rain run off in small wetlands, where indigenous aquatic plants can grow and where water birds in small numbers can find sustenance.

The 'forests' should have fruit-bearing trees forming a low-rise canopy. There should be unchecked undergrowth to provide shelter to ground feeding birds and their insect prey. Here bird droppings and leaf litter should be the only manure.

Once such a system is established, there will be no need to water the 'forests'. It will be an ideal home for a host of birds and other forms of life. These 'forests' will demand nothing from us other than our absence. And, for all you know, the house sparrow may even stage a come back!

Saving sparrows in changing habitations

Urban habitations and changing architecture are also one of the factors which impact on decline in population of sparrows. It does not support growth of nests of sparrows as they nest at low heights on trees or holes & cervices within buildings. But city like Bhopal which still has some 'unsold' area left and has bushes, greenery, landscapes, it is possible to retain sparrows in Bhopal as compared with mega cities.  In upcoming new colonies, way to retain and save them will be to make sure that new colonies should have compulsory gardens, with trees and climber plants. And  availability of 'water for garden' should be made compulsory for the builder so that we retain places for sparrows to breed.

On tree trunk

Outskirts of Bhopal sitting on tree trunk, rural parts of Bhopal still harbours many sparrows, hopefully builder lobby will not take them away !

Cell phone radiation impacting Gauriya in Madhya Pradesh

A study published in Shodh, Samiksha aur Mulyankan (International Research Journal, Vol. II, Issue-7 (published in August 2009) on Effects of cell phone radition on Gauriya sparrows - Passer Domesticus by S D Dongre and R G Verma of Department of Zoology, Jayvanti Haksar Government Post Graduate College, Betul. concluded that the Passer domesticus are fast disappearing from contaminated with electromagnetic waves arising out of increased number of cell phone to Bhopal, Nagpur, Jablpur, Ujjain, Gwaliar, Chhindwara, Indore & Betul.Wireless telecom revolution is catching on at the expense of a tiny winged creature the Passer domesticus. The National Research Council of Canada did lots of studies on the non-thermal effects of microwave radiation on birds in the 1960s, before the wireless industry took They found that bird feathers acted as dielectric receptors. Birds that had been plucked under anesthesia showed no reaction to radiation until the 12th day, when their feathers started to grow back. Studies also showed altered EEG patterns, escape behaviour, other signs of stress in the form of vocalization, defecation and initiation of flight.

In the study the researchers had examined small scale geographic variation in the number of Gauriya bird and the strength of electromagnetic radiation from cell phone base station. The long term exposure to low intensity electromagnetic radiation 900-1900 MHz down link frequency from cell phone base station on the number of Passer domesticus during the rainy , winter and summer season was studied in the Bhopal, Nagpur, Jabalpur, Gwaliar, Indore, Ujjain, Chhindwara & Betul .

Sparrows population and impact of mobile towers

As per research article published by Alfonso Balmori1 and Örjan Hallberg on the Urban Decline of the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus): A Possible Link with Electromagnetic Radiation based on study done in Spain suggest that electromagnetic signals are associated with the observed decline in the sparrow population. The paper was published in Informa Healthcare. In the results of the paper they say 'We conclude that electromagnetic pollution may be responsible, either by itself or in combination with other factors, for the observed decline of the species in European cities during recent years. The appearently strong dependence between bird density and field strength according to this work could be used for a more controlled study to test the hypothesis'. Bhopal which has number of mobile companies with their expanding tower networks, will be impacting house sparrows.

Sparrows eating on side wall of the house in Bhopal

Water for Birds !

This year March is hot, and with water levels declining, many have started keeping a vessel outside their homes for the birds to get a breather as temprature climb up in the city ! In picture a house sparrow over water vessel...kept in house in Nehru Nagar.

Declining house sparrows a call to attention

House sparrow is the most familiar bird which is associated with human habitation. Be it a growing city like Bhopal or a village in interiors of India one can hear chirping call notes of house sparrows and see the birds fluffing its feathers.  But their population is declining, and to draw attention to this species March 20, is marked as World House Sparrow Day. Promoted by Nature Forever Society, in collaboration with the Bombay Natural History Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology (U.S.), Eco-Sys Action Foundation (France), Avon Wildlife Trust (U.K.) and numerous other organizations, it is an effort to raise awareness about the decline of the bird and bring out the problems faced by the bird in discourse. Declining population of the bird provides a warning that the urban ecosystem is experiencing some environmental changes unsuitable for human health in the immediate future. The house sparrow is a species that has evolved with humans and is always found in and around human habitations, and is one of the indicator of urban ecosystem. With growing in urbanization in India, need is to monitor the changes happening to this little bird.

House sparrow normally nests in collection of straws, feathers or rubbish, within households are near our surroundings. In a village it is seen within compounds in the house and reminds of old time where they were found under a picture frame in house compound or inside a parapet, or inside stores.

Bhopal which is growing city, with rapid growth in urbanization, tress are giving way to concrete, their population is declining. Modification in urban architecture, with new style building and flats coming up giving limited space for their nesting ground, excessive use of microwaves by installing mobile towers and increased in pollution levels is impacting lives of these house birds. Since many of the factors responsible for this decline are manmade, hence the day is call to attention and giving them space in our lives.

Let's save sparrows !

April, 2010 - March 20, 2010 was World House Sparrow Day. The diminutive house sparrow ( Passer domesticus), whose nests dotted almost every house in the neighbourhood as well as public places like bus stands and railway stations, where they lived in colonies and survived on foodgrains and tiny worms, is now a disappearing species. Bhopal has still number of sparrows though at many places they have disappeared thanks to the way construction is happening. It is builder's lobby, mobile companies, and pollution which are causing changes in urban habitat, modification in architecture, excessive use of microwaves by installing  mobile towers and pollutions which is impacting the lives of these housebirds.

Interestingly sparrows are not found in jungles, deserts or places where humans are not present. The sparrow is a species that has evolved with humans and is always found in and around human habitations.  Time for us to think and take some action to save sparrows or we will have to live in sparrow less, concrete Bhopal !