Kasaragod: Seven students from Holy Family School's Eco-club carried out a sparrow survey at Kumbla town in Kasaragod on World Sparrow Day on Friday. The seven girl students went around the narrow lanes of the town and counted the chirpy birds in the locality.

At the end of the exercise, the students found 33 sparrows and the local traders told the students that they have not observed drastic decline of the sparrows nor their number has shot up in the recent years.

The seven students were Spandana, Sadhana, Chaitra, Dhrithi, Sathwika, Lakshaya and Niharika studying Class 6 in Holy Family School. Naturalist Maxim Rodrigues, bird watchers Sankarsh from Uttar Pradesh and Usha Kirana from Kumbla accompanied the students.

Neharika D said that she learned that it was not mere a bird counting exercise but they wanted to sensitize the local people about the World Sparrow Day. "I got to know a lot about sparrows and learned why we celebrate World Sparrow Day on March 20," said Niharika.

"During the activity, I saw a group of sparrows pecking grains from the soil. They were very active and kept feeding even when we were nearby," said Spandana. The students interacted with the shop owner in the market.

One of the shop owners, Narayana told the girls that the local sparrow population is stable. The students have observed that some of the traders have kept artificial nests for the birds. "I happened to see many sparrow boxes kept for them, and some were even made from dried pumpkins, which I found very creative," said Niharika.

Prasad Madwa, who runs a vegetable shop, showed the girls his artificial sparrow nest he had placed in his shop. Across the world, March 20 is observed as World Sparrow Day to take out the conservation measures and spread awareness about the small birds which have been living side-by-side with human beings for ages.

Since the way of packaging the grains and construction style of the houses underwent drastic changes in modern times, the sparrow population started disappearing from the town areas, said Raju Kidoor, convener of the school's eco-club who took the students for sparrow counting. "It was an hands on experience for our students. They counted 33 sparrows," he added.

This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.