The World Sparrow Day - March 20

The abase house sparrow has fans outside the rarefied world of birdwatchers. “It's because successive generations arose up with this passerine bird. It's little surprise that they feel its absence,” says Madras Naturalists' Society (MNS) and adds that this love for the sparrow bird is adequte to script its comeback.

MNS is creating a “Sparrow Map of Chennai” and it relies mostly on residents to achieve this task. To involve the community in this conservation effort, MNS has called an event for World Sparrow Day for the every year “March 20” that requires people to write in about places where they have seen sparrows.

Participants are awaited to look for these birds in their neighbourhood on March 20 and note down the location, time, weather, number of sparrows, activities they were engaged in, location of nests (if any), other birds or animals found in the vicinity and other relevant information. If participants have managed to click photographs of these sparrows, they may send them in.

MNS will work on this data, visiting these sites and looking for ways to improve sparrow populations there. “Areas where sparrows even flock may offer clues to understanding factors that confirm these birds. Various theories have been forwarded to brief the dwindling numbers of sparrows and collecting data about these birds from areas where they are still found may help get at conclusions about these theories.

Comeback of grey pelicans Bird creates immense academic interest

The return back of grey pelicans bird to Kolleru Lake has generated a wonderful amount of academic interest in the avian fauna of the lake. The amount of migratory and residential birds recorded by the Wildlife Division of the Forest Department has almost accomplished 200.

Several species of jacanas, storks, herons, ducks, teals, cormorants, daters, terns, pigeons, doves, swifts, kingfishers, drongos, bee-eaters, cuckoos, parakeets, swallows, bitterns, owls and sparrows are on the list of birds that have made a home in the lake. Many of these birds were rare and threatened spices. The large whistling teal is listed in Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection Act) 1972. The migratory birds stopped coming and the residential birds left with the devastation of their habitat by unregulated aquaculture.

The grey pelican birds were among the first birds to stop arriving to the lake to roost. But the many steps has taken by the Forest Department brought these large birds back.

The birds remained away from the lake for a couple of decades. The lake which is a Ramsar site was then announced a wildlife sanctuary. Several illegal fish tanks were destroyed as part of Operation Kolleru. The birds came back after that, but did not stay to perch in the season. The Forest Department then took special steps to see that the pelicans that were coming every year remained back in Atapaka to nest.

Winter Visitor Birds: A Long Journey

The Arctic tern is the champion of all super and covers longer distances of migration of Arctic North to spend the winter in Antarctica. (Remember that our winters are summers). They travel 20,000 km to reach 20,000 in the other way back.

It's that time of year when you begin to feel the pinch in the air and the day quickly, giving way to night. Before we know it winter will be upon us, I tell myself as I wander down a path of family forest. Ulooka, owl, greets me from the hollow of a tree.

I look up to see a huge white and black V-formation in the sky in the morning. A group of cranes, Demoiselle. These people are coming from Central Asia through the Himalaya.

Do you know we are over 300 species of birds from the winter? All of our forests, lakes, wetlands, swamps and water bodies will host foreign guests. So keep a sharp eye for them.

Becomes unbearable cold in the freezing winter months in the northern hemisphere and birds travel great distances from Russia, Eastern Europe, Iran and Africa to come here. Flying over the deserts and mountain ranges, often non-stop for days, some of them do not travel through the long grueling. Which is why there are a lot of preparation that goes before the migration.

Mysterious Owl Birds Feared by Man

Harry Potter film, unknowingly, you have many children around the world interested in owls. Children are inspired to learn more about these amazing birds.

Unfortunately, these mysterious birds are generally feared by man, and as most are solitary and nocturnal, we have described as horrific creatures in most of our art, film and literature.

The population of these creatures of saving a very large amount of food grains that rodents might be destroyed. "There are about 250 species of owls found throughout the world. India is home to around 35 species, of which five are endemic to the subcontinent. Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes. They are in worldwide, except Antarctica, Greenland and some remote islands.

All species of owls are not endangered. Some of them are commonly seen around us. These carnivorous birds are at the top of the specific food chain feed on a large number of small mammals, insects, fish and snakes.

The Male Bird Spider Back Massage

When a man of golden orb-weaver spider Nephila Pilip want to get to work, he takes a special trick: You give your partner a "backrub", a new study.

For many spiders, the females of the species are much larger than the males-N. Pilip women are up to ten times larger, so mating is always a risky business. An unlucky suitor may be interrupted in his carnal embrace, when a woman starts and eats it.

Male spiders have developed several techniques to avoid this fate, at least before the end of the work.

Black widow, for example, picking up the scent of women that help determine how hungry males of their interests before trying to love is to mate. Redback spiders in Australia, meanwhile, actually snacked leave to extend their time with a woman.

N. Pilip strategy involves another trait common among spiders: pedipalps, a pair of appendices that include the male genitalia, said study co-author Matjaz Kuntner, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Male pedipalps fit perfectly into two of the female genital openings, which can leave behind to "connect" openings. But a man needs to mate several times to connect the two openings and ensure the woman who may have multiple partners-have their babies.

Butterfly Flowers with wings

Butterflies are one of the most beautiful creations of nature. Known as "flowers with wings", most other creatures are attracted to these colorful creatures. There are about 17,000 species of butterflies in the world. India is one of the 17 "mega diverse" world, is home to a spectacular number of butterflies, around 1,800 species. About 15-20 percent of these are endemic in India



Can be found anywhere in the world, in cities, towns, villages, fields, forests, deserts, swamps, and even in the snowy mountains! However, we see butterflies in abundance in most of these places, despite many flowering plants that are present. Only certain plants attract butterflies.

Butterflies are adults, the phase of flight of insects belonging to an order called Lepidoptera. The word "Lepidoptera" means "scaly wings" in Greek.

The butterflies feed on nectar from flowers, animal droppings and even sweat. A butterfly also the needs of salts in the soil, so they often sit in damp spots to take in salts from the soil.

Some love butterflies feed on rotting fruit and even a little alcohol. These beautiful insects in pollination and help play an important role in the food chain because they are food for lizards, birds and many other creatures.

Mysterious pink-headed duck Birds

Did you know that the mysterious pink-headed duck in danger of extinction? It seems to have succumbed to a combination of habitat loss and hunting pressure. What about the Siberian crane? Its global population is estimated at 2.900 to 3.000 birds. The main threat is the loss of wetlands - the destruction and degradation of wetlands along its passage and wintering. As with the white-rumped vultures and India, has been a sharp decline in recent years in the vulture population of slender-billed, common in India and Nepal, until recently.




Learn all this and more about birds at www.bnhsenvis.nic.in. The website of the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) Centre of the Natural History Society of Bombay (BNHS) in packets of information about birds and bird ecology. It is available for free. The support of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, the website is available in English, Hindi and Marathi.

Tatarstan skylark Bird Climate Change

Birds are detail well-suited to move as conditions vary. Somewhere mysterious in their DNA is a memory of changes in the past and how to deal with those changes. Four articles have appeared lately reminding us that birds are fully able of responding to change in climate.



Europeans have been observing bird demeanor for centuries, and in the Volga-Kama region of the Tatarstan Republic of Russia, observations go back to 1811 AD. The Tatarstan skylarks migrate south for the winter and their return is a conventional harbinger of spring in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe.

A team of scientists from Tatarstan Republic and the United Kingdom analyzed the long record of return dates of the skylark and discovered that they have been arriving earlier and earlier over the past three decades (11 days earlier since the late 1970s). Askeyev et al. showed that the veer in bird behavior happened when the March air temperatures in the region have increased by 3.7ºC. The climate changes, the birds react. C’est la vie. We note that the birds don’t seem to be victims of changes in temperature – they’ve suitably adapted their behavior to fit ever-changing conditions.

The Bird watching in desert

The sun is beating down difficult on us when we arrive – a motley group of tourists from across the world – to watch a falconry display in Dubai late one afternoon. We are on the edge of a vast expanse of desert, gently undulating sand dunes in what we see.
I had vaguely assumed that birds would be greater, and the falconer would be more fierce.


In contrast, a thin man, unassuming young future in traditional white dress is blinding on setting up their paraphernalia expressionless. The hawks - are hawks, which then gives - is tied to a pole in the sand, with a delicately ornamental hood covering his eyes (it seems cruel to me who is blind, until I learned that it is necessary to allow birds to adjust their powerful vision for the new environment).

Still, with no vary in expression, the falconer gets one of the birds to perch on his arm (covered with a cushiony cuff), and the tourists quickly erupt in a volley of photo-clicking. The bird was transferred to the arms of the visitors are bolder and more shooting.

World Sparrow Day March 20

World Sparrow Day observed as March 20 all over the world. Why a Sparrow Day? Because the total of sparrows is quick dwindling and we humans need to do something drastic rethinking about our lifestyle and the environment to save these small little birds. It is also an opportunity to get together all bird lovers so that we can find ways to maintain endangered and exotic wildlife. The theme for this year is “Chirp for the sparrow! Tweet for the sparrow!”



It is time we inquired ourselves: Have we driven out the little bird?

You can
Sprinkle grain on the terrace

Keep out cuddle boxes and clean water

Avoid chemical pesticides and insecticides – opt for organic ones

Lead a more environment friendly life

You can also join the World House Sparrow Day group on Facebook. - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=296899691800

For more information visit: www.worldsparrowday.org

http://www.worldhousesparrowday.org/