House sparrows chirp again, thanks to a bird lover

[Sakobav]

May be members from Jalandhar can chime in but a noble effort -- sad to these birds disappear..

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100912/punjab.htm#1
Courtesy The Tribune

Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 11
The city is experiencing the “rise of house sparrow”, thanks to the missionary zeal and dedication of Prof Sandeep Chahal, a bird lover. House sparrow has almost disappeared from urban areas and to a large extent from the countryside also because of the extensive use of pesticides in the farm sector. With the replacing of wooden and thatched house roofs by concrete material, domestic sparrows have lost their favourite habitats in residential areas. India is one of the countries, which have witnessed a massive decline in the house sparrow population during the past 30 years.

However, Prof Chahal, who is working hard for the past three years to bring sparrows back in the city life, has come out with a solution to deal with the habitat problem faced by these little chirpy birds. He manufactures wooden nests himself and distributes these free of cost to all those having love for birds. Till date he has distributed about 350 nests made of water and termite-proof wooden material.

He has kept all tools and wooden material at his home in Wadala village, on the outskirts of the city, and spends his free time to manufacture nests.

“Initially, I faced some problems in handling the manufacturing job. But now, I am well versed in this art. I prepare the nest in such a manner that birds adopting it should not face even a minor discomfort while living in it,” said Prof Chahal, who teaches English in the local Doaba College. As eagles, snakes, hawks and cats are the predators, which attack sparrows and their eggs, nests are hanged at such places in a house that these should be beyond their reach, he said.

“It is my rough estimate that 4,800 sparrows have been added to the bird population of the city due to my efforts during the past three years,” said Prof Chahal. “I give a nest only to those people whom I find committed to the cause of birds,” he said. He launched an organisation “Dastak” with the objective of breeding sparrows and saving butterflies. “We have launched recently a new project that is related to the saving of butterflies, beautiful creatures of nature,” he said. “People kill butterflies and fix them in photo-frames to hang as decoration pieces in drawing rooms,” he said. “Monarch and cabbage butterflies are common in Punjab. But these are killed and sold by fixing in photo-frames,” he said.

[shooter]

3 for the prof.

[prashantsingh]

House sparrows and Vultures which were common birds in our childhood are today rare.
Pesticide and loss of a nesting place are some causes for the reduce in sparrow numbers. There is one school of thought which points the blame to all the the mobile towers which have mushroomed all over our towns and cities. The high frequency emmited from these towers is said to drive away/kill these small little creatures.
Similarly the vulture population has been drastically reduced due to extensive use of Diclofenac in treating colic in domestic animals. The drug stays on in the tissue even after the animal dies and causes liver damage in vultures.

[Sakobav]

Prashant

There are such towers in US with no impact on birds but I agree that this has more to do with pollution and chemicals ...I was upset when I didnt see even one of these and missed their energetic chirps..

[shooter]

Similarly the vulture population has been drastically reduced due to extensive use of Diclofenac in treating colic in domestic animals. The drug stays on in the tissue even after the animal dies and causes liver damage in vultures.

Thanks for the info. Something I wasnt aware of.

[The Doc]

Similarly the vulture population has been drastically reduced due to extensive use of Diclofenac in treating colic in domestic animals. The drug stays on in the tissue even after the animal dies and causes liver damage in vultures.

The real cause is renal failure which leads to visceral gout a condition in which pasty, chalky white deposits of uric acid coat the internal organs.

In healthy birds, uric acid is excreted by the kidneys and is seen as the white material in their droppings. When the kidneys fail, uric acid builds up in the bloodstream and crystallizes on organs, especially the heart, liver, and kidneys.

Researchers have performed tests to see if viral or bacterial infectious disease, pesticides, poison, heavy metals, or nutritional deficiency could explain the renal failure observed in dead vultures but found no such evidence. Instead, they found a correlation between kidney failure and diclofenac.

More ...... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 801603.pdf

best,
Rp

[prashantsingh]

Thanks Doc for the detailed explanation.
The sad thing is that inspite of knowing the cause , I see Diclofenac still being used extensively in the rural areas by Vets.
On my last trek (2009) to places in Dist Uttarkashi (Garhwal Himalayas) I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of Griffon Vultures. Interestingly these remote places had no access to Medical / Vet. services.


ngrewal,
There is much talk about how the mobile companies in India flaunt safety norms and put up their towers where the only criteria is convinience and financial gain rather than safety to man and animal. That's why I used the word "mushroomed". The mobile industry here has grown fantastically and (almost) everyone today has a mobile.

[prashantsingh]

ngrewal.
This is dedicated to you.
I drove 12 kms out of town on the Simla By-pass road to get a glimpse of this bird.
Took some snaps and asked my 7 yr old daughter to identify it.
She couldn't .
Looks like the common "gauraiya" of my childhood is no longer so common today amongst town folks.

[jonahpach]

Personally, I find them to be a pest! Noisy, shitty, and a downright nuisance! Anybody feeling any kind of sympathy for them can come to my home and take them all! There are hurndreds of them nesting between my ceiling and the tin roof of my attic. If not for my wife and kids (allergic to cats) I would raise a batallion of cats (My first love) and set them free in my attic.

[Sakobav]

Thanks prashant -- vow one has to drive all the way to simla or outskirts or other end of India aizwal to find these chirpy birds - even though pesky glad to know they arent extinct Yet

cheers

[Rajat]

Good post. Thanks for the info ngrewal.

[airgun_novice]

May be members from Jalandhar can chime in but a noble effort -- sad to these birds disappear..

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100912/punjab.htm#1

Quite informative, thank you, ngrewal. Likewise in Mumbai. Once it was a citadel of mills and rice farmlands in the suburbs and surrounding regions. In my childhood, it was a delight to wake up to the chirping of house sparrows. With politicians ousting the mills and selling Mumbai and surrounding regions into the hands of land mafia the natural food zone (grainland) was gone. Housewives in Mumbai chawls (which were open and airy - sparrows nested in the pipe joints - no 'concealed' piping those days) used to thresh their rice and clean their grains in the open and sparrows would thrive on the grain bits and husk as well. Today high-rises aka "Towers" under disguised named of 'development' have replaced most of the chawls and people now have the option of buying polythene packaged grains which are tad clean. Thus I feel in Mumbai not just the pesticides but also the Man's malevolent role has played a major role in cleansing the sparrow population.

After we returned from the US, we stayed at Borivali (suburb) on 4th floor with a big balcony overlooking an open space and Krishnagiri Upavan in the distance. We had a chandelier-style clothes dryer (concentric circular frame) for drying out small clothes of infants. After we ceased using it, a bulbul couple made a nest amidst the concentric circles and lay many eggs over years. It was fun watching the chicks pop out and hop around till it was able to fly off. I never found out if it was the same couple or the couple kept changing and the "maternity hospital" as my wife called it, was passed on.

It was removed (with a heavy heart) after we shifted to Thane. The last of the colorful spotted eggs was kept on the window pane since I didn't have the heart to throw it out, but minutes later a crow who was nesting atop the coconut tree nearby made good use of it. Tennyson was right when he said, "Love's Final Law; Though Nature's red in tooth and claw; ..." or something such.

[Yaj]

airgun_novice, that was a good post
Regards,
Yaj.

[fantumfan2003]

Great to see them back.....

Every time I see crows bullying other birds with their group tactics I get very annoyed....

M.

[airgun_novice]

airgun_novice, that was a good post
Regards,
Yaj.

Thank you Yaj - isn't it wonderful how memories of some events actually spring up to give us some momentary joy while the events simply might seem mundane while in motion. OK OK I shall refrain from quoting Wordsworth and his Daffodils.