Wooden Nests

The Fast Disappearing Sparrow

In case you did not know it, March 20 was World Sparrow Day. The idea was to focus attention on the disappearing sparrows of our world. When I was young, sparrows were perhaps the most common birds; today they are increasingly becoming rare.

The reason, according to sparrow lovers, is the lack of suitable nesting sites and food sources.

An article on World Sparrow Day says: 

“According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), house sparrows had evolved with humans instead of forests. Both had peacefully co-existed till not so long ago — in houses and gardens. "But in the last two decades, their population is on the decline in almost every city," the fund said. "As green spaces in our cities give way to more concrete constructions, the house sparrows loses its foraging ground, affecting the availability of seeds and worms," WWF said, prompting Nature Forever Society of India and the Eco-Sys Action Foundation of France to get them back home.

One research into dwindling population of sparrows prompted a 12-year-old girl in Mumbai, Mehek Mehta, entitled "The Sparrow Project: Decline of Sparrow Population in Urban Areas" won her the silver medal at the Homi Bhabha Bal Vaidyanic Competition held recently…She concluded her project by saying the diminishing sparrow population in Mumbai and other areas was a factor of environmental and ecological changes which are yet to be perceived by humans. But predominantly, it is the loss of food and nesting places that are the culprits.”  [source: http://www.microfinancemonitor.com/2015/03/20/world-sparrow-day-searching-for-small-chirpy-passerines-we-miss-now/]

Raman Jankiraman writes in from Chennai with the suggestion that woodworkers and DIY hobbyists like us help sparrows by building nests for them.

“From what I understand, the sparrows (Gauraiyā in Hindi, Kuruvi in Tamil)  are disappearing from our urban lands due to lack of nesting sites. Hobbyist wood workers like us can help in the conservation effort by building nest boxes from scrap wood and keeping in our back yards or giving it to friends and family. For what I have seen, it does not take much time and effort to build these boxes,” he says.

Cut list for nest

Source: http://www.rspb.org.uk/makeahomeforwildlife/advice/helpingbirds/nestboxes/smallbirds/making.aspx

This is just a sample, I am sure others can come up with more practical and easy way of building it. 

Raman, who says he will always be a wood worker at heart, came across this blog while researching power tools to add to my belt. He raises Australian Budgies (also called Love birds) and is always looking for ways to improve their quality of life by making perches with scrap and natural wood.

He felt it might be a good idea if people like us could create nesting boxes for these endangered birds and provide them an opportunity to thrive in our urban landscape. He was looking at a website [http://www.shopping.natureforever.org/categories/Nature-Nestboxes/cid-CU00020315.aspx] to see if he could buy a few and realised that our readers could easily make them with some scrap wood.

“May be they can make a few, give it to neighbours and friends and maybe create awareness about this cause,” he says.

How about it, folks?

Indranil Banerjie
28 March 2015