March 20 is World House Sparrow Day:

Song of the sparrows

Rohini Ramakrishnan

Once commonly sighted, these little chirpy birds are fast disappearing. Have you seen a sparrow lately?

“A little bird, with plumage brown, / Beside my window flutters down,/ A moment chirps its little strain,/ Then taps upon my window-pane,/ And chirps again, and hops along,/ To call my notice to its song;” said Paul Laurence Dunbar in his poem titled The Sparrow.

Small, plump and cheeky, this dinky bird has firmly decided to live with humans. But recently their non-appearance in localities where they ruled the roost is worrying. Whom are we talking about? Certainly not about a flamboyant or an exotic bird. But a rather drab brown and grey creature who has befriended us humans with its chirps and cute little ways and is so much a part of our life. As Birdman Theodore Baskaran describes them, they are one species that closely follow man, like the crow. “They are our co-tenants,” he says.

This little bird could be quite a bully and is known for taking over nests of other birds, and turfing out older “tenants”. But both the male and female take care of their young, unlike other species, for instance among peacocks only the female takes care of its chicks.

Many reasons are given for their apparent “disappearance”. The introduction of unleaded petrol is one, as the combustion of which produces compounds methyl nitrite, which is highly toxic for small insects that forms a part of a chick’s diet.

Old houses had eaves and tiles that were comfortable perches to build nests on. External wirings and framed pictures too were “habitats”. But sleek modern buildings no longer have these and so we have lost these “feathered neighbours”.

- The Hindu