Of little wings and sweet chirps!

RITIKA SHARMA / Emirates Business

A little bird, with plumage brown,
beside my window flutters down……
But we, in traffic’s rush and din,
Too deep engaged to let them in, with deadened heart and sense plod on
Nor know our loss till they are gone.

While in school, I knew the above poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar by heart. Least did I know, back then, that the last line will literally come true so soon. Now when I go through it again, I feel the famous American Classic The Sparrow summed up the present situation so well.
You have seen them around your home during those hot summer afternoons, their chirps led you to beautiful start of your morning and you have grown up shooing them away and trying to hold them – I am talking about the little social brown birds called the house sparrow.
So near they have been to human existence that as societies turned into concrete jungles, we realized that the bird which was once such an inseparable part of our lives is hard to find. Those of you who have interacted in any what way with this bird might already know that it was fifth annual World House Sparrow Day on Sunday.

How was it observed
The nature conservationists around the world organised, various talks, seminars and awareness campaigns to save the bird. In India, the country where it all started saw a host of activities where various NGOs, social groups and bird lovers urged their neighbours to place bird feeders and water bowls for sparrows and attract them back. Schools organised pledge ceremonies across the globe in order to educated younger generation about the environmental advantages of conserving the species.
Some of the animal right activists also installed nests to attract the sparrows to stay back. Most of the youngsters took to social media and stared twitter campaigns and Facebook fan pages to expand the celebrations on to the virtual world.
Initiated in 2010, it’s an annual awareness-raising campaign that celebrates sparrows and emphasises the need to protect these little birds, as well as their habitats. House sparrows which were once very common, should be taken seriously before they disappear forever. In the UK alone, the number of house sparrows has dropped by 90% in recent years!
Now that you know the gravity of the situation, pledge, to be kind to these little treasures of nature.