After flying away from the city limits, the humble house sparrows seem to have found a safe habitat in high altitude cold desert areas of the Himalayas.
A team of researchers have spotted good population of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) at the height of 4,250 mt above sea-level in the cold desert in Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh.
The house sparrow is among seven species of sparrows that are widespread resident in Indian sub-continent up to the height of 2,000 mt But, now due to habitat degradation in the cities, the house sparrows appear to be adapting in the severe cold climatic conditions at high altitude.
“While the population of house sparrows is declining everywhere, surprisingly, this bird explored new habitats and adapted in cold climatic condition even at the high altitude cold desert area of Himalayas in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh ie up to the highest inhabited village in the world, ‘Komik’ at the height of 4,250 mt above sea level,” said TK Roy, a member of Indian Bird Conservation Network and the coordinator of Asia Waterbird Census (AWC) while talking to The Pioneer.
A large number of house sparrows were spotted at ‘Komik’ and its nearby villages during a bird survey-cum-field study conducted by TK Roy and other researchers.
He said that the house sparrows were found at Komik and its adjacent villages namely Kibber (4,205 mt), langza (4,200 mt) where old structured village houses are suitable for nesting. A natural feeding habitat is available all around here without any threats although temperature drops to sub-zero at night.
“The house sparrow population is increasing and supporting the food chain in this area. This area comes under Trans-Himalayan cold desert bio-geographic zone and is typical habitat of dry alpine steppe vegetation for rare alpine flora and fauna includes Snow leopard, Tibetan Wolf, Jackal and some amazing bird species specific to Tibetan Plateau. This cold desert zone remains snow covered during entire winter, said ecologist and environmentalist Roy.
He added, “The house sparrows are generally found in Indian sub-continent up to the height of 2,000 mt. The house sparrow used to be most common in densely populated villages, towns, cities amidst human habitation but now disappearing. Its population is declining due to habitat lose because of modern architecture buildings, concretisation all around, declining feeding habitats, higher air pollution and increasing mobile towers all around the cities.”
According to the environmentalists, there are multiple reasons for the decline in sparrows’ population including changing human lifestyle, use of pesticides, radiations from mobile towers, noise pollution among others. Birds are intolerant of noise and birds nesting success is higher in quiet areas rather than urban areas which are noisy and full of activity.