| ID | 6255 |
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| Q1. Name of locality or area you are reporting about | Martin Burn Campus |
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| Rough Address/Area | Raniganj Railway Station, National Highway 60 |
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| City/District | Raniganj |
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| State | West Bengal |
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| Location Latitude | 23.60436249 |
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| Location Longitude | 87.11753082 |
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| Q3. What time period are you reporting about? | 1950-1954 |
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| Q4. What kind of general area are you reporting about? | City (main) |
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| Q5. What kind of locality is/was this in the time period chosen above? | Old residential area |
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| Q6. Roughly how large is the locality/area from which you are reporting sparrows? | More than 1 km across (eg, a large village or town) |
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| Q7. How well do/did you know this place in the time period chosen above? | I lived there |
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| Q8. How frequently did you see House Sparrows in the time period and locality/area chosen above? | Always: I saw sparrows every day |
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| Q9. When you did see House Sparrows in this time period and locality/area, how many did you typically see? | A fair number: When I saw sparrows, there were usually between 5 and 30 birds |
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| Q10. If House Sparrows are/were present in this time period and locality/area, did you observe active nests? | Nests seen frequently |
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| Q11. Would you like to share a story about House Sparrows from this time period? | In my childhood during the above period there were abundance of house sparrows. They were not afraid of human presence rather they took full advantage of the city life to live and multiply without any concern. A few things that they took advantage of are as follows.
The old buildings of that era were built by the British Engineers who liked 12'-14' high ceiling, spacious rooms, electric wiring mounted high up the wall on elaborately ornate teak wood batten with protective wooden cover. Wooden Joint boxes, Corner joints were provided with ample sizes providing a very good platform for the sparrows to set up nests without fear. Also, then the suspension rods of old generation D.C. fans were much longer. They used to have large metallic caps at both ends which again provided a safe place for building a nest. Very rarely any resident took offence in the presence of these birds. They were part of our daily life. Another important factor leading to abundance of sparrows within a household was availability of food of their choice. Then rice and other cereals were daily subjected to winnowing to clear any chaffe or broken grains before cooking. These rejects were one of the main items in their menu. They had free entry to any room in the household without facing any threat.Today there is a sea change in housing design. The ceiling height has come down to 9'-10', open wiring has been replaced by concealed wiring, the stem of today's celing fan has become 18" only. Today we need not resort to winnowing food grains, instead we get grains in polythene bags. we have lost open grassland which provided building materials for our little friends.There has been a drastic habitat loss for these sparrows.Till 1975 there was no largescale microwave transmission system in place. With the advent and proliferation of communication technology it appeared that the birds moved away from areas covered by them may be due to electromagnetic field. But there is positive come back now.
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| Q12. What kind of buildings are/were present during this time period in this locality? | |
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| Q13. Please describe this locality/area in your words. | |
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| Q14. Does or did anyone feed sparrows in this locality/area, or put out nestboxes? | |
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| Q15. If this is an agricultural area, what are the main crops grown? | |
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| Q16. How much green space exists/existed in this locality? | |
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| Q17. If you have seen sparrow nests, where were they? | |
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| Q18. When did mobile phone coverage arrive at this locality? | |
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