Where have all the Sparrows gone!!

William Wordsworth's "vision of delight", in his poem "The Sparrow's Nest", has almost gone missing from our lives as sparrows have long since stopped building nests in our homes and neighbourhoods.

When I was a child I used to get up in the morning hearing the chirping of the sparrows around my house. It used to be a lovely sound which I have not forgotten todate. The sparrows used to sit on the boundary wall of my house or just move about on the canopy floor or garden searching for food. In case I ever left the window open they would fly straight in and perch on the curtain pelmets or almirah. I would then scamper to switch off the fans lest any of them got hurt. When they flew behind the curtain of the see through glass window with an illusion of escaping out of the windows, they were stuck. Seeing this I would prance behind the curtain and get hold of a sparrow. As a noble guest of ours, We would offer water first and then some rice grains to feed.(Most of the time it refused to eat). Sometimes we use to take my moms nailpolish or other colour and colour them so that we can identify it the next our esteemed gust decides to visits our home.

It used to be a wonderful sight watching them chirp all thru the day. I used to sit with my friends in the canopy to study and the sparrows used to come near us and then again fly away after taking the food that we gave them. They were a wonderful company.

The male and female sparrow (lovingly called chidda-chiddiya) would fight with each other whenever together much the same way as most of the married couples do nowadays...:).

However, over the past few years I have noticed that they have disappeared from certain areas of our city. My curiosity made me check with my friends and most of them said 'Of yes! Even I havent seen them since some years'. That made me wonder what could have happened? One of my friends offered an explaination that its because of the mobile towers that have come up all over. The strong signals from these towers kill the embryo inside the egg itself...

The decline in the numbers of house sparrow is clearly a sign of the extent to which urban environment in India has been altered. There are hardly any safe alcoves, curves in roofs and safe balconies for these tiny birds to build their nests.

Pesticides in food-grains, which sparrows consume, lead to their poisoning.

I really miss the sparrows and am really curious to know the reason for the disappearance of the sparrows from large areas of Delhi. Can anyone provide inputs?