As an only child with busy working parents, the living creature i saw the most when growing up, were sparrows.. i watched them chirping away, chasing or grooming each other from the windows or when i lay in the sun in winter.
Image taken by Vijay Raman in Bhiwadi.
The sparrows were my family, you might say. My parents did not do anything to strengthen those bonds, but my grandmother did ask me to give a roti (Indian bread generally made at home) to the crow everyday - maybe he shared some with the sparrows !
In the mid-90s, my husband and I and our friends, began to notice we no longer had sparrows around our homes, or very few of them..
The newspapers started lamenting about the decline of the sparrows.. We were told the sparrows did not have enough food and water and we started to put out some. But we were not as invested in them..
This image is from the net. you can see the name of the painter on the left bottom.
It was not until 2011, when we had settled down in a new house with a small garden, that we truly developed a relationship with sparrows, and indeed all other birds who visited us. To begin with, the sparrows were few.. but as we put out feed (bajra - pearl millet), drinking water, bathing water and nest boxes, their numbers grew.
Now around 30-50 of them live in our full-grown Ficus tree (I have not counted them but watching their sorties in and out of the tree, and especially their morning / evening chirp chorus give me a sense of the numbers) most of the year.
Sometimes, they are inexplicably gone for weeks, which leads to much hang-wringing in our family !
Image by Vijay Raman. He entitled it 'Why we are running out of Nests !'
Thus I know from personal experience how you can 'grow' a sparrow population in your vicinity.. obviously try and avoid all things that would frighten them - loud sounds, people aiming toy guns at them or trying to shoo them away..
Sparrows need only a small entry hole to their Nest-Box.
Predators such as Shikra (a kind of a small hawk) occasionally visit (they have to feed their babies too !) but it is cats who should be discouraged..
In my earlier housing society in Gurgaon, our plenty-ful birds were all but wiped out by the ever increasing cat population..
It is also important to keep their feed-boxes and water sources clean, else many birds can die of disease.
Shikra - bird identified by Vijay Raman, picture taken by Bulbul in the garden at her home.
The sparrows were my family, you might say. My parents did not do anything to strengthen those bonds, but my grandmother did ask me to give a roti (Indian bread generally made at home) to the crow everyday - maybe he shared some with the sparrows !
In the mid-90s, my husband and I and our friends, began to notice we no longer had sparrows around our homes, or very few of them..
This image is from the net. you can see the name of the painter on the left bottom.
It was not until 2011, when we had settled down in a new house with a small garden, that we truly developed a relationship with sparrows, and indeed all other birds who visited us. To begin with, the sparrows were few.. but as we put out feed (bajra - pearl millet), drinking water, bathing water and nest boxes, their numbers grew.
Now around 30-50 of them live in our full-grown Ficus tree (I have not counted them but watching their sorties in and out of the tree, and especially their morning / evening chirp chorus give me a sense of the numbers) most of the year.
Image by Vijay Raman. He entitled it 'Why we are running out of Nests !'
Thus I know from personal experience how you can 'grow' a sparrow population in your vicinity.. obviously try and avoid all things that would frighten them - loud sounds, people aiming toy guns at them or trying to shoo them away..
Predators such as Shikra (a kind of a small hawk) occasionally visit (they have to feed their babies too !) but it is cats who should be discouraged..
In my earlier housing society in Gurgaon, our plenty-ful birds were all but wiped out by the ever increasing cat population..
Shikra - bird identified by Vijay Raman, picture taken by Bulbul in the garden at her home.
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