Recently, my lost mobile phone beeped back into my life under unlikely circumstances, and when I flaunted my unusual good luck, friends did not mind it. They lapped it up, because everyone loves to hear a lost-and-found story. The greater the odds of something never being sighted again, the more riveting the story.
Now, for house-sparrow-loving residents of Chennai, there is the promise of an endearing lost-and-found story. If we make the right interventions now, it can surely be one tale that we can go to town with. There are sections in Chennai where the house sparrow is making its chirrups heard, and not all of them have earlier had a house-sparrow presence.
Recently, Rajeshwari Nair, a resident of Navallur, wrote in, pointing out that “sparrows suddenly appeared in our building... we are happy to note that they are still around.” She would like to know if there is any way house sparrows could be encouraged to fill her workplace — which is Chennai Mathematical Institute in Siruseri — with their chirrups.
For Field Notes, Metroplus. Two bronze-winged jacana chicks at a boggy patch along Buckingham Canal, off TNHB Main Road in Sholinganallur, on September 11, 2019. This patch hosts a small bronze-winged jacana population now. Photo: Prince Frederick
The success of any efforts by conservationists to sustain and increase sparrow populations depends on getting the narrative right. It should be a non-linear narrative that takes in the gaps in our knowledge about sparrow conservation, and comes with counters against unjustified optimism. While sparrows are certainly back in some areas, they have not returned in numbers that call for a celebration. In some sections, a sudden spurt in sparrow numbers has been followed by a mystifying dip.
So, there is yet a lot of work to be done. If we do it right, Chennai will have a great lost-and-found story to tell the world.
For me, as I have mentioned earlier, the bronze-winged jacana is such a story. Recently, I discussed how I had been following a bronze-winged family at the Sholinganallur lake last year, and the bird’s encouraging numbers at two patches near the Buckingham Canal this year. At one of these patches, I recently spotted two bronze-winged jacana chicks watched over by their dad.
Field Notes is a weekly column about the resident and migratory birds of Chennai
