It is unfortunate that one time best friends of the humans, the household sparrows have gone missing especially in urban dwelling sites thus giving a setback to ecology of the region as hardly one finds this species of bird in Jammu city or in its outskirts. This is a big question that where these chirping little creatures have gone as there are no instances of any special things challenging their existence in the city. The experts which themselves are not very clear often blame loss of habitat for the extinction of these small creatures from Jammu as new buildings lack nesting provisions but this could not be the exact reason as still there are quite a good number of trees in Jammu where these could live and flourish their families. Though no proof is yet evolved but several people claim that mobile towers forced these avian family members to leave cities and move out to forests but the assertion is just a vague idea as no scientific proof is there to support this idea as well. It’s important to save sparrows by installing nest boxes, bird feeders, planting native plants and reducing use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. This seems an easy way out but in reality it is very difficult thing as people don’t have time to talk to their own children these days. Use of heavy doses of pesticides in kitchen gardens and fields resulted in the decline of invertebrate fauna. Small insects play a very important role in the survival of newborn sparrows. Thus this fact can be attributed to end of house sparrows in the city areas. There is still a big hope that these small chirping birds will come back soon but for this residents have to take some small initiatives like making provisions for nests in the houses, stop use of dangerous pesticides and providing food to the birds as and when possible. These small steps can prove very useful or else the days are not far when the remaining bird species will also disappear from the scene.
