By Ragoo Rao
The humble and adorable little birds, chirping and flitting around in our compounds and courtyards, the House Sparrow is a confirmed hanger on to man ever since humans started depending on agriculture and created settlements. These birds have even been mentioned in most of our mythologies and folklores, along with the common crow, eagles and other such birds, which used to exist in close proximity to human dwellings. Grandmothers of yesteryears had plenty of Sparrow Folk-tales (Gubakkana kathegalu in Kannada), and all children would gather around them to hear the stories. It was once a very common, respected and much loved bird all over the country whether it was a bustling urban area or a small hamlet. In South India, people even considered it a good omen if the House Sparrow built a nest inside their houses under the rafters, ventilators, behind wall-hung photo-frames, pendulum clocks hung on the wall, or even a niche in the wall, littering the whole place with grass blades brought for nesting, their droppings and grain husks after feeding, but nobody ever considered them a pest. Some rural people even deliberately made cavity-like holes in the walls with a small protruding cornice, for the birds to land and then enter the nest.
