On the occasion of ‘World Sparrow Day’ I am making an appeal
through my blog to save the sparrows and I have posted the following message on
my facebook status:
“It is long since the sparrows have vanished from our house and
garden and we rarely get to see them nowadays, that too when we move far away
from the city; at some temple, dhaba or in the villages. I miss these birds,
which lived in our garden and inside our house too!
Wherever you may find them, please do everything possible to help
these lovely birds survive”.
Reminiscing old times, I really miss these birds. At any given time
of the day; from dawn to dusk, these birds were available and easily visible at
our house. Their chirping could be heard intermittently. However much we tried
to stop them, they found ways to enter our house and make nests on the
ventilators and top canopies of ceiling fans. They moved about freely in the
house picking up something or the other to eat, especially from leftovers on
plates at the dining table and at the kitchen sink. It appeared as if they
loved our house as much as we did. They maintained a distance from us but never
seemed afraid of us until we were shoving them away. We and our children grew
up seeing these birds every day.
At our house, mothers used to feed the babies and small children by
diverting their attention to the activities of these birds, which came very
close to them for some food. There was a musical way of calling these birds in
Telugu for the sake of children – “Dhayi dhayi Pitta” or “Pittamma ravay”. The
birds living in the house sometimes caused a nuisance with their droppings,
their eggs falling out of the nests and sometimes the chicks falling out of the
nests and then the birds accidentally getting killed by the ceiling fans. And
outdoors in the garden, their numbers were huge. On clotheslines and tree
branches, we could see rows of sparrows at any time. These lovely house
sparrows have gradually vanished from our house and the city. Now we can only
see them when we move out of the city to far-off places.
I am happy that the world is sincerely concerned about the survival of these once common and popular birds, and I hope they will certainly find ways to save these birds and prevent their extinction. Let us also do everything possible to save these lovely birds.
Yes. Sir. We too used to catch these sparrows by closing all windows once they enter our houses & catch them
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