Hyderabad: A colony in Sainikpuri that cares for Birds

Nowadays, the small birds which used to chirp continuously and visit lawns and parks are seldom seen, especially the sparrows due to rampant urbanisation. To save the birds and facilitate a secured habitat, the residents of Sai Baba Officers Colony, Sainikpuri, are creating artificial nests and placing them on trees and their homes to save the birds from becoming extinct. They are making nest boxes from old plywood sheets.

The Officer's Colony has 197 individual residences and the locals are aiming to install about 100-200 nesting boxes in their colony. Initially they had placed 50 nest boxes on the trees.

"Our colony has proper greenery, but for the birds there is no proper resting places, earlier, many sparrows and smaller birds used to appear in the colony, but resent that there is a decline in the number of smaller birds. So, in order to provide resting and feeding spots, we started making nesting boxes with old plywood sheets.

The motto behind this initiative is to set an example and encourage other residential colonies to adopt this initiative and build nest for smaller birds," said Sudesh Kumar, a member of Residents Welfare Association, Sai Baba Officers colony.

"Due to the rapid construction activities, the habitat of birds are getting destroyed.

In cities we can only see pigeons as they can survive in concrete jungle. The initiative launched in 2nd week of October by the Colony Association needs zero investment as the nesting boxes are made up of discarded plywood sheets. Instead of throwing them the residents were re-cycling them by making nests for birds.

Many sparrows have already taken the boxes as nests and very soon we would be able to see sparrows and other birds back in the colony. Also, the local carpenters voluntarily are helping in making wooden nests," said Chandrasekhar, Secretary of Residents Welfare Association Sai Baba Officers Colony.