As the countdown to the World Sparrow Day (WSD) on March 20 — a celebration of the much-cherished but fast-disappearing sparrow — begins, the Nature Forever Society (NFS) has decided to launch Project SOS: Save Our Sparrows by distributing 52,000 bird feeders to interested citizens, institutions and organisations across the country.
'Unique programme'
Describing it as a unique functional conservation programme involving common people, India's well-known sparrow man Mohammed E. Dilawar of the NFS says the feeders, to be distributed free-of-cost in association with Burhani Foundation (India), could be installed in homes, open yards, balconies and even office premises.
The programme will be initiated on March 6. Feeders have proved to be the best medium of saving the diminutive bird, whose dwindling population, especially in cities, has become a cause of worry.
Besides distribution of feeders, the NFS has lined up a series of events to promote conservation of sparrows. Among them will be the BiodiverCity Photography Competition, to be held in collaboration with Bangalore Photography Workshops. Anyone can participate in this competition by sending to NFS pictures of common birds taken on a regular digital camera, SLRs and even mobile cameras.
Citizen groups will be encouraged to organise bird walks/watching trips, public discussions, presentations and impromptu events at society, school, college, locality and town levels. Events carried out across the world could be uploaded on a common WSD website.
“Ours is a fight to conserve not just the diminishing sparrow count around the world, but to save all the common birds and biodiversity found in our immediate environment, which are often overlooked and abused by virtue of being too commonplace,” Mr. Dilawar said.Another interesting feature of the WSD this year is to look beyond house sparrows and expand the celebrations to 26 species of sparrows found across the world.
