Kusum Gokhale -
thane city Samata Nagar, Thane West Thane Maharashtra
Tarangan Complex is a locality with high rise buildings in which almost 350 families of higher middle class reside(Map 1). In front of these buildings a big open nallah flows and flyover is built on the east side of this complex carrying heavy traffic day and night. Korum mall has come up on the north side. All the buildings have a garden and tall trees line the side of the nallah.
The drainage and water pipes are covered by concrete walls and frontage have a iron grills of 3.5 cm square openings. These openings give free access to the sparrows and avoid menace of pigeons and other animals. In the beginning crows were not seen in this locality even though cawing of crows could be heard only in the early morning.
The garden receives cow dung manure and has mainly Ficus hedge which continues into bamboo hedge on the road side of this complex. At the end, the bamboo hedge turns into thicket (5 feet breadth, 13 feet in length and 11 feet height) which becomes short and sparse as it continues. The thicket is the roosting site of the sparrows in the morning. In the evening, sparrows gather in the ficus and sparse bamboos chirping continuously and then retire to roost in the bamboo thicket.
The sparrows chirp for almost 45 minutes before sun rise and then leave their roosting place invariably within 15 minutes in groups of 10 to 15 just before the sunrise. The number of sparrows was counted from the two ends of the thicket (site 1 and 2 respectively) for half an hour. Some of them rest for a few seconds on a nearby tree probably to warm up and then fly. A few of them return back. The returned sparrows are subtracted from the total number of sparrows to give a correct picture. (Table 1).
TABLE 1 - Total number of sparrow continued on pg 3
Tarangan Complex is a locality with high rise buildings in which almost 350 families of higher middle class reside(Map 1). In front of these buildings a big open nallah flows and flyover is built on the east side of this complex carrying heavy traffic day and night. Korum mall has come up on the north side. All the buildings have a garden and tall trees line the side of the nallah.
The drainage and water pipes are covered by concrete walls and frontage have a iron grills of 3.5 cm square openings. These openings give free access to the sparrows and avoid menace of pigeons and other animals. In the beginning crows were not seen in this locality even though cawing of crows could be heard only in the early morning.
The garden receives cow dung manure and has mainly Ficus hedge which continues into bamboo hedge on the road side of this complex. At the end, the bamboo hedge turns into thicket (5 feet breadth, 13 feet in length and 11 feet height) which becomes short and sparse as it continues. The thicket is the roosting site of the sparrows in the morning. In the evening, sparrows gather in the ficus and sparse bamboos chirping continuously and then retire to roost in the bamboo thicket.
The sparrows chirp for almost 45 minutes before sun rise and then leave their roosting place invariably within 15 minutes in groups of 10 to 15 just before the sunrise. The number of sparrows was counted from the two ends of the thicket (site 1 and 2 respectively) for half an hour. Some of them rest for a few seconds on a nearby tree probably to warm up and then fly. A few of them return back. The returned sparrows are subtracted from the total number of sparrows to give a correct picture. (Table 1).
TABLE 1 - Total number of sparrow continued on pg 3
