When my four-year-old daughter was taking ever so long to finish her plate of rasam saadam, my father-in-law said, “See how fast the sparrows have finished the rice that paati had given!” The little one retorted, “Thatha, there are 12 of them and I am eating all by myself!” This happened 40 years ago when sparrows were abundant around our house in Jamshedpur. Now, in the same house, I rarely see the bird.
House sparrow, Passer domesticus (Latin passer means ‘small active bird’ and domesticus indicates ‘belonging to the house’), has been living near human dwellings for more than 10,000 years. Originating in West Asia, the bird has followed the pattern of human migration and spread all over the world. Life in the villages provided an unlimited source of seeds, grains, and insects. There were many cosy spaces to build nests in: under the roof, on the ventilator openings in walls, and on unused ceiling fans. Sparrows would breed throughout the year and ran the risk of being consumed as chittu kuruvi lehiyam for fertility!
With sparrows around there was no need for insecticides, and the farmers did not mind them pecking at a small fraction of the grains. The sparrow population was kept in check by their natural predators – owls and kites.
The biggest assault on sparrows happened in 1959 when Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, launched ‘The Great Leap Forward’ to bring China on a par with the developed countries. One of his ideas was to eliminate pests, including sparrows! His ill-conceived plan was to make more grains available to people. The state-sponsored attack was complete. Men and women took to the streets, beating drums and banging pots. Sparrows were hounded and forced to fly until they dropped dead from sheer exhaustion. Children were rewarded for killing sparrows with catapults. In the next few months, more grains did become available, but disaster struck the very next year. In the absence of sparrows, swarms of locusts ate all the grains. The greatest mass starvation that followed led to the death of more than 40 lakh people. The situation was reversed by importing sparrows from Russia and Chairman Mao removed sparrow from the list of pests.
The next assault on sparrows started insidiously when villages and small towns evolved into cities and metros. Concrete houses and high-rise buildings did not provide any niche for sparrows to build nests in. Till as recent as 30 years ago, sparrows would hop around the houses in cities, pecking at grains spread in the courtyards and roosting in shrubs and hedges. Gradually gardening practices changed towards exotic plants and lawns that needed to be kept free of native weeds and insects with chemical sprays. Corner shops selling grains stuffed in gunny bags got replaced with super markets selling the same in spillage-free plastics. Even as mobile phones made communication easy, the electromagnetic radiation they emitted is believed to cause disorientation to and affected the fertility of sparrows. The sparrows were forced to leave the cities and their exodus remained largely unnoticed.
Now we need a World Sparrow Day, celebrated on March 20, to remember the once ubiquitous little birds.
As their numbers dwindle, we can try to look out for the few remaining sparrows that hop around some old houses. The least we can do is to preserve their habitat by retaining the shrubs in which sparrows roost and avoid chemical insecticides. Nest boxes, seed feeders, and bird baths may attract and make the birds stay. Sparrows and owls have an important role in the food chain and a healthy population of such birds will work to our benefit by keeping a check on insects and pests. One look at the innocent round eyes of a little sparrow will remind us that they need to survive for own own sake. It is time to become aware and make it easy for sparrows to coexist with us.
vijayacardio@gmail.com
