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Universally familiar in appearance, the widespread
and once abundant house sparrow has become a mystery
bird and is becoming increasingly rare all over the
world. Perky and bustling, house sparrows have
always been seen, mingling with finches in the
fields in autumn and winter, but now weeks pass
without a single one putting in an appearance.
They are vanishing from many big cities, but are
still not uncommon in small towns and villages.
India has seen a massive decline of sparrows in
recent years. On the world map too. Once a
commonplace bird in large parts of Europe, its
numbers are decreasing. In the Netherlands, the
House Sparrow is even considered an endangered
species. Their recent decline has earned them a
place on the Red List in the Netherlands. Similar
precipitous drops in population have been recorded
in the United Kingdom. French ornithologists have
charted a steep decline in Paris and other cities.
There has been an even sharper fall in the urban
areas in Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy
and Finland.
History
It is thought that the House sparrow originated in
the Mediterranean and expanded into Europe with the
growth of civilization. At the insistence of man did
the sparrow make its way across the Atlantic to the
United States. In 1850, green inch worms were
destroying trees in New York City’s Central Park. As
the house sparrow’s main diet in England consisted
of the same green worms, it was thought that if
sparrows were brought to New York City they would
solve the worm problem in Central Park. Others
thought the sparrow would eliminate crop pests.
The first introduction of the sparrow was conducted
by the Brooklyn Institute in 1851. Eight pairs were
originally released but none were able to survive
the change in climate. More attempts were made and
eventually the birds adapted to a colder climate and
multiplied. The sparrow rapidly spread across the
United States. The abundance of spilled grain used
for feeding horses and the artificial nesting
cavities provided by humans helped the sparrow
along. They successfully followed humans to many
parts of the world- North and South America,
Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Food
The house sparrow is an intelligent bird that has
proven to be adaptable to most situation, i.e. nest
sites, food and shelter, so it has become the most
abundant songbird in the world.
Sparrows are very social birds and tend to flock
together through most of the year. A flock’s range
covers 1.5-2 miles, but it will cover a larger
territory if necessary when searching for food. The
sparrow’s main diet consists of grain seeds,
especially waste grain and live stock feed. If grain
is not available, its diet is very broad and
adaptable. It also eats weeds and insects,
especially during the breeding season. The parasitic
nature of the house sparrow is quite evident as they
are avid seekers of garbage tossed out by humans. In
spring, flowers (especially those with yellow
colours) are often eaten crocuses, primroses and
aconites seem to attract the house sparrow most. The
birds also hunt butterflies.
Housing
House sparrows are generally attracted to buildings
for roosting, nesting, and cover. They look for any
man-made nook or cranny to build their nests. Other
nesting sites are clothes line poles with the end
caps open, lofts, kitchen garden etc. The sparrow
makes its home in areas closely associated with
human habitation.
Taxonomy
The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a member of
the old world sparrow family Passeridae. Some
consider it to be a relative of the Weaver Finch
Family. A number of geographic races have been
named, and are differentiated on the basis of size
and cheek colour. Cheeks are grey in the west and
white in the east. The shade of the colouration,
particularly of the chestnut area in the males is
also considered. Birds of the western hemisphere are
larger than those in the tropical South Asian
populations.
In India, it is popularly known as Goraiya in the
Hindi belt. In Tamil Nadu and Kerala it is known as
Kuruvi. Telugu language has given it a name,
Pichhuka, Kannadigas call it Gubbachchi, Gujaratis
call it Chakli where as Maharashtrians call it
Chimani. It is known as Chiri in Punjab, Chaer in
Jammu and Kashmir, Charai Pakhi in West Bengal, and
Gharachatia in Orissa. In Urdu language it is called
Chirya while Sindhi language has termed it as Jhirki.
Features
This 14 to 16 cm long bird has a wing span of 19-25
cms. It is a small, stocky song bird that weighs 26
to 32 grams. The male sparrow has a grey crown,
cheeks and underparts, and is black at the throat,
upper breast and between the bill and eyes. The bill
in summer is blue–black and the legs are brown. In
winter the plumage is dulled by pale edgings, and
the bill is yellowish brown. The female has no black
coloring on the head or throat, or a grey crown her
upper part is streaked with brown. The juveniles are
deeper brown, and the white is replaced by buff the
beak is dull yellow. The House Sparrow is often
confused with the smaller and more slender Tree
Sparrow, which, however, has a chestnut and not grey
crown, two distinct wing bars and a black patch on
each cheek
The sparrow’s most common call is a short and
incessant, slightly metallic cheep, chirrup. It also
has a double call note- phillip wherein originated
the now obsolete name of “phillip sparrow”. While
the young are in their nests, the older birds utter
a long churr. At least three broods are reared in
the season.
Reproduction
The nesting sites are varied - in holes in buildings
or rocks, in ivy or creepers, on houses or
riverbanks, on sea-cliffs or in bushes in bays and
inlets. When built in holes or ivy, the nest is an
untidy litter of straw and rubbish, abundantly
filled with feathers. Large well- constructed domed
nests are often built when the bird nests in trees
or shrubs, especially in rural areas.
The House Sparrow is quite aggressive in usurping
the nesting sites of other birds, often forcibly
evicting the previous occupants, and sometimes even
building a new nest directly on top of another
active nests with live nestlings. Eggs are variable
in size and shape as well as markings. Eggs are
incubated by the female. The sparrow has the
shortest incubation period of all the birds, 10 -12
days, and a female can lay 25 eggs each summer. The
reproductive success increases with age and this is
mainly by changes in timing, with older birds
breeding earlier in the season.
Causes of Decline
There are various causes for dramatic decrease in
their population, one of the more surprising being
the introduction of unleaded petrol, the combustion
of which produces compounds such as methyl nitrite,
a compound which is highly toxic for small insects,
which forms a major part of a young sparrow’s diet.
Other being areas of free growing weeds, or
reduction in number of badly maintained buildings,
which are important nesting opportunities for
sparrows. Ornithologists and wildlife experts
speculate that the population crash could also be
linked to a variety of factors like the lack of
nesting sites in modern concrete buildings,
disappearing kitchen gardens, increased use of
pesticides in farmlands and the non- availability of
food sources.
K.S. Gopi Sunder of the Indian Cranes and Wetlands
Working Group says: “Although there is no concrete
evidence or study to substantiate the phenomenon,
the population of house sparrows has definitely
declined over the past few years”. He attributes
this to a number of reasons. The widespread use of
chemical pesticides in farmlands has resulted in the
killings of insects on which these birds depend.
“Seed-eating birds like sparrows have to depend on
soft- bodied insects to feed their young ones,” he
said. The other possibility could be increased
predation by crows and cats, while crows have grown
in number as a result of garbage accumulation in the
city.
According to Dr. V. S Vijayan of the Coimbatore-based
Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural
History, though the avian species can still be
spotted over two-thirds of the world’s land surface,
“ironically, there has been a rapid decline in the
population of these once abundant birds”. Changing
lifestyles and architectural evolution have wreaked
havoc on the bird’s habitat and food sources. Modern
buildings are devoid of eaves and crannies, and
coupled with disappearing home gardens, are playing
a part in the disappearing act.
Today one misses the sight of sparrows hopping from
branch to branch in the bushes outside one’s house
and their chirping. One is taken back to well known
Hindi Writer Mahadevi Verma’s Story ‘Goraiya’ -
eating grains from her hands, jumping on her
shoulders and playing hide and seek. Today one
wishes that the Goriya does not remain confined in
the pages of Mahadevi Verma’s story but comes back
to our cities as ever before.
*Deputy Director, Press Information Bureau, Delhi
PIB
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