“This is not your home. You can’t stay here. Take your family and just fly away.”
This seems like such an extreme and ill-heartening thing to say. Isn’t it? But that’s the tune we are playing for birds, especially sparrows. Our developmental plans and structural layouts for our homes have made these cute little creatures fly away from their homes.
Recent reports cite that their numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate! Even when Delhi celebrates sparrow as it’s state bird, it has no concern for the preservation of this chirping little fellow.
Having researched well about the reasons for their decline, I am sad to say that humans are a bigger threat to them than climate change or increase in the number of blue rock pigeons. With our desperate hunger for development, we are erecting radiation towers at every turn, cutting swathes of green area for urban confinement and last not but not least, changing our architectural designs.
All this has affected the nesting pattern of sparrows. They are unable to find spaces and crevices in window openings or walls or trees to build their homes. Therefore, I want to propose a very simple solution to this problem. It is really sounding smart in my brain, so I am hoping to be right on this one.
Now, before coming to my solution, I want to tell you how it occurred to me. Well, one day I was going from Noida to Delhi through the ITO bridge route. I happened to notice the newly installed street light poles on the sidewalks. There was something peculiar about them. I saw that some of the poles had a kind of metal spike design stretching out of them. (See the picture for example.)
I didn’t get the purpose of it. Was it a flaw or they were intentionally kept for some technical function? I still don’t know. But to my surprise, I saw that on these spikes, sparrows were resting in their nests.
Well, if these spikes were made for serving to sparrows’ nesting needs, this article is a very late entry to creative ideas. But if it wasn’t, then we should use this idea to solve the sparrow crisis. Isn’t it too simple and straight? Mother nature has given a solution on her own, this time within the technological bounds. So let’s hop on this train and enjoy the intricacies of this solution.
Solution Process
1. Install ( street lighting ) poles on the roadside but at a certain minimum height and carve out a few small platforms to provide the base to the best building. On every pole, just design 2 to 3 such platforms, depending on the height of the pole. The important thing is that it has to be kept at safe and a high level away from human reach. This shouldn’t be installed on radiation towers as it will hurt them more than providing the benefits. (See image)
2. Now, just above few inches to these platforms, also design a small umbrella-shaped roof to prevent these creatures from rain or heat. The platforms can provide a useful base for nesting to these sparrows or any other kind of birds looking for a place to stay. Also, it wouldn’t cost much.
That’s all folks. That is my simple solution to this home crisis of sparrows. And those worrying about littering of bird faeces around poles, let me tell you, you aren’t safe now either. Anywhere and anyone can become their defecation spot. At least, after this solution, only the pole sides need to be cleaned. So this is my basic solution to a problem that’s troubling our urban landscape. We and nature have always lived together and this time we need to be at the front foot. If we can engineer such basic solutions, then we can create a new world, where nature and humans live in close harmony.
P.s. Ignore my silly sketching. I just hope it is serving the purpose for better understanding.