Remembering Sparrows, Reminding Dodo.

The coming generation or probably the one after that might see sparrows in pictures and not feeding upon grains. While the planet is already challenged by global warming, ozone layer depletion, climatic changes, deforestation, air, water and land pollution, extinction of tigers and danger to wildlife as a whole, we are slapped on our faces with yet another disturbing fact that sparrows once that were in abundance greeting ‘good morning’ is now an endangered species.

In Delhi, while pigeons and crows have crowded the streets and the sky, the little brown birds have disappeared noticeably. People now in their twenties can actually compare the difference.

Dwarka in South West Delhi witnesses different kinds of birds, thankfully Sparrows being one of them.  ‘Umar – The Chai Wala’ (Tea stall) near the campus of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University is visited by large number of Parrots, Pigeons, Sparrows etc.

With the Najafgarh drain bird sanctuary not far away that becomes a refuge to thousands of migratory water birds every winter, a delightful sight of birds can be witnessed. Within National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) this water-way is misclassified as a mere drain, in fact, it is the continuation of Sahibi River and an elongation of the Najafgarh jheel Lake and is a tributary to River Yamuna. Winter months are the best time to visit it to see many flocks of wintering water birds along its length and breadth.

The sparrow, once the exemplar of a commonplace bird, is becoming increasingly rare in France and other European countries. French ornithologists have now charted a steep decline in Paris and other French cities. There has been an even sharper fall in urban populations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Finland. As in Britain, where sparrow numbers are believed to have fallen by 90 per cent in the past 15 years, continental ornithologists can find no coherent explanation for the sudden decline. The mystery is especially deep in Paris, which is believed to have lost 200,000 sparrows.

Sparrows being slowly wiped out as our malls and sleek apartment buildings come up in a 'Shining' India further reminds us of another bird species called the Dodo. Large number of these birds were killed for food as in 1505 the Portuguese became the first humans to set foot on the island of Mauritius. Many of the ships that came to Mauritius also had uninvited rats aboard, some of which escaped onto the island. Before humans and other mammals arrived the Dodo bird had little to fear from predators. The rats, pigs and monkeys made short work of vulnerable dodo bird eggs in the ground nests.

The combination of human exploitation and introduced species significantly reduced Dodo bird populations. Within 100 years of the arrival of humans on Mauritius, the once abundant Dodo bird was a rare bird. The Dodo bird is just one of the bird species driven to extinction on Mauritius. Many others were lost in the 19th century when the dense Mauritian forests were converted into tea and sugar plantations.

The last Dodo bird was killed in 1681.