SURAT: In an expanding concrete jungle, birds are adapting to newer nesting ideas in the Diamond City.
They now prefer ‘container homes’ over the twigs and leaves nests.
And why not? Finding a new home after losing the natural habitat in an urban landscape is not only a challenge for the humans.
Looking at these issues, Nature Club Surat (NCS), a city-based NGO, has taken up the massive task of providing homes to the shelter-less birds by recycling plastic containers of edible oils and lubricants.
It has already installed such ‘nest boxes’ at its office near Parle Point, at eco farm in Vesu and also at the Gavier Lake within the past eight years.
And these ‘homes’ never go vacant, said an NGO member.
Realizingthat there is a shortage of space in the city for birds to build nests, the NGO has decided to expand its reach.
“Birds seek hollow spaces and crevices to build nests, which are depleting.
Since our nest boxes are already a hit with the avians, we decided to provide same in all public parks and gardens in the city,” said Snehal Patel of NCS.
Volunteers approached scrap dealers to buy five and 20 litre containers.
In December last year, the NGO even raised Rs 50,000 through a music show for the project.
The containers were washed and repainted before bird holes were made in them.
“We had our volunteers, but staff of a couple companies too pitched in, and they had some good time.
Bird holes were made of different sizes so that smaller birds’ nests remain safe from predators along with a water drainage hole at the bottom,” Patel said.
In the past two months, 600 containers have already been installed in different gardens of the city and the NGO aims to install over 2,000 containers in total.
“We are already seeing these containers being occupied by birds such as sparrows, Oriental robin-magpie and Indian robins, owls, mynas, parrots and even squirrels,” Patel said.
He added that this project will not only provide safe places for birds for nesting but also increase avian population.
“In our traditional houses, there used to be ‘chhajjas’ where birds made nests.
Nowadays, people have mosquito nests or do not even open windows, disallowing sparrows to build their homes inside our houses.
That’s how sparrows came to be earlier called ‘house sparrows’,” Patel explained.
The NGO’s project not only involves placing these container nest but also maintaining them.
After breeding season, the abandoned nests will be cleaned by volunteers so that new birds can occupy them again.