| Q11. Would you like to share a story about House Sparrows from this time period? | We had a sparrow nest in our bedrooms ventilator. The nest was the center of attraction. It was made mostly from hey, but also had Wool strings, feathers, bits of colourful papers, Pieces of cloths and many such things which we found of no use. Nest was as big as the ventilator say about the size of our football with a very small round entrance. We loved to see sparrows which we locally called Khudbudi, come with variety of things to build their nest. Our parents were unhappy! the simple reason was they were afraid of the fan blades which had earlier chopped khudbudis heads off.
Few weeks passed and now we only saw the male khubudi.We really got worried and asked our granny to see if the female bird had hurt herself or was ill. She told us that the bird had laid eggs, but she was clueless how many eggs were laid.
We tried every possible way to reach the nest but failed each time. Every day Ma used to keep rice and a chukka(earthen cup) filled with water for the birds.
Weeks later we woke up with chattering of newborn khudbudis. Literally i jumped out of the bed to see them. After many attempts 2 week later i managed to see small yellow beaks. I can't explain my level of excitement. Later that day in afternoon i was playing with my brother, atones some thing dropped from the nest. We ran towards it, we saw a bird sooo small, without feathers , shouting at its full strength. For some time we were lost, i could not believe my eyes. I stepped forward to lift the bird but stopped because we got afraid if we would do any harm. Later we were told that the bird would take her baby home herself, if she leaves her child it meant the child was ill and can infect her other babies also. We were left heart broken. Along with our friends we guarded the baby. Khudbudi came back in the evening. She started trying to lift her baby, after 5 minutes she took her baby back to the nest. All of us had a smile on our face...Khudbudi was a part of our family now. |
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