Courtship of House Sparrow
In big metros, people are missing house of sparrows which used to be a common sight early in the morning in each house hold, in courtyard and house garden.
However, for the last so many years, they have moved out because of destruction of their habitat in and around our houses, due to the construction of towers for the mobile phones without which we appears to have become dead. In order to save them, Delhi Govt. has declared sparrow as State bird of Delhi.
For quite sometime I was interested in recording their courtship /mating. I remember I saw it many years back when they were seen but as a birder it was missing from my treasure . Last month I was in Dehradun and staying at #Shaheen Bagh . Since the place is so heavenly I thought of spending time at the property.
Sparrows are actually large finches.They are usually seen in small to medium-sized groups, but may occur in huge numbers. The male has a conspicuous grey crown, black face and throat, and dark black and brown upperparts. The remainder of the under parts are pale grey-brown. When breeding, the black of the throat extends to the chest and upper belly. The bill also changes from brown to black. The female is slightly paler than the male and lacks the grey crown and black face, instead having a pale buff eye stripe. Young Sparrows are similar to the adult female, but are duller with some mottling on the crown, and have a darker bill.
A birder can not close his eyes and always thinks of seeing something new. The eyes searched what they wanted . Yes I saw and observed the mating of the House Sparrow. I could record it on the light lamp on the wall covered with lovely creepers. It appeared as if they are expecting a NEW LIGHT in their family.
As a nature conservationist, I feel that we have to take all measures so those sparrows again come back to urban environment. Further, we have to ensure that the birds such as Red-vented Bulbul, Myna, Crow, Woodpecker, Owl, Parakeets, Asian Koel, Common Hoopoe, Kingfisher, Peafowl do get protection, in some way or other. They have been associated to humankind from time immemorial. By saving the birds around us, means “we are saving the nature”.