Will the decline of House Sparrow affect humans?

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

The house sparrow, the non stop exploiter of anything was once an extremely common sight.

Until a few years ago, a house didn't become a home without the house sparrow's nest hanging on the wall made out of a clay pot or a cardboard box.

The family only had to fix it and the house sparrow comes from nowhere and builds the rest of the nest. It was a joyful sight seeing the house sparrow couple feeding the off springs.

So pleasant to see the offspring grow in to fledgling and fly away to learn the risks of the world. Basically this little bird breeds and feeds near people.

Though the house sparrow is quite adaptable to live in a built up area today one would hardly find these vibrant creatures. Have they declined greatly in numbers? It is yet to know.

According to several researches done in other countries it is evident that this is not only happening in Sri Lanka.

Drastic decline

To make the communities aware of the decline in nature's beauties around us conservationists and nature lovers of the world hold a special day dedicated to house sparrows and other common birds we see in our day to day lives sharing our eco system.

March 20 has been named World Sparrow Day which is an initiative by the 'Nature Forever Society' recognised by the international community.

The Nature Forever Society started by an Indian Ornithologist Mohammed Dilawar made the world dedicate a day of the year to the house sparrow and today they still continue to raise awareness about the issue and distribute nest boxes to encourage the public to bring sparrows into their homes and neighbourhood. Mohammed Dilawar was featured in 2008 by the Time magazine as one of the Heroes of the Environment celebrating his untiring efforts towards environment conservation.

Though countries such as Sri Lanka and India do not know for sure the declining percentage of house sparrows, in United Kingdom monitoring by conservationists have shown a drastic decline in the sparrow population.

The data collected by the UK Breeding Bird Survey shows a decrease by 71 percent since 1977 to 2008 with substantial declines in both rural and urban populations.

The UK Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is administered by the British Trust for Ornithology, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

The results of the BBS are valuable in evaluating the increasing and decreasing range of bird population which can be a key point to bird conservation.

Research

Why is it important to know the status of the house sparrow and common birds we see every day?

In a way these birds can indicate us the degrading status of the environment we live in.

These innocent creatures have to pay for the consequences of the careless nature of the human beings. We are often engrossed in what happens to bigger, more glamorous species such as the leopard or the bear, whereas common species are often ignored.

The sparrows are an important bio-indicator of the health of the urban environment.

They show us if something has really gone wrong in our habitats.

"Birds are good indicators of environmental changes. For instance, an increase in the crow population of Colombo would indicate that there has been poor garbage clearance, and a polluted environment.

An increase in beautiful birds such as the Sunbird would show that we live in an environment of quality," said expert of the field Prof Sarath Kotagama of the Department of Zoology of University of Colombo.

The Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, led by Prof. Kotagama will be launching a preliminary house sparrow count starting from March 20, Thursday. Research for a ubiquitous, multi-brooded species such as the house sparrow is difficult unless individuals are marked and their breeding activities are followed through the breeding season.

"This will be a preliminary study as it is important to know locations house sparrows are commonly found.

We intend to find where these birds mostly exist," said Malaka Rodrigo, Coordinator of the Common Bird Survey of the Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka.

The Common Bird Survey can be considered as a 'Citizen Science project' where general public can also participate.

Citizen science is a term used for projects or ongoing program in which a network of volunteers, many of whom are not experts in the field perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation.

The use of citizen-science networks often allows scientists to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. In addition, these projects aim to promote public engagement with the research, as well as with science in general.

"The House Sparrow has been living like a part of our lives for centuries.

We believe that humans have been taken these beautiful birds for granted living in our immediate environment," he said.

"The numbers of birds in various areas are also dwindling due to causes such as deforestation, wetland reclamation and changes in habitat. Even the birds that are common today can be diminished without our knowledge.

So no species can be labelled as safe, no matter what its number is today.

It is only when the public becomes aware of the value of these beautiful creatures, can more be achieved towards protecting them," he said.

They can make a list of birds that they can identify in a given location and either email it to [email protected] or post it to FOGSL, Department of Zoology, University of Colombo, Colombo 3.

The list should include the date, location, weather at the time, the habitat that the bird was observed in, birds seen and the name and contact details of the observer. Participants can also enter data directly to http://www.worldbirds.org/srilanka which is part of the international network of databases used to analyse status of birds.