Spare some water for birds flying by during this summer

ALAPPUZHA: For birds, every passing summer is turning out to be harsher and unbearably hot, especially with mercury soaring to over 30 degrees these days. It’s not uncommon for one to see a horde of avian friends visit houses irrespective of rural and urban landscapes. It’s time home yards are left marked by a riot of chirpy bird wail, which could facilitate mynas, bulbuls, babblers or a murder of crows.  Though many people, in these days, are coming up with the initiatives to help birds leaving a bowl of water on the windowsills, large section of the society is still unaware of providing small help to create a bird-zone in their compounds. So, the summer is a reminder for people to do this small thoughtful measure to help out the avian friends as well.

Pradeep Kumar, a bird lover in Alappuzha, who has been doing this ritual every summer for a decade, says he has already started to set up water facility for birds at the small patch of his home garden. In the past, these birds had depended mostly on local ponds that occurred in the houses. “With the ponds vanishing from houses and soaring heat, summer became a testing time for them. With my experience of many years of handling birds rescue, I have identified that lots of birds get distressed due to heat in summer. They just lose their strength by flying due to dehydration in hot summer,” he observes. 
“Providing water to birds could change hundreds of lives necessary for nature.”

In Haripad, a group of youngsters under the banners of Muslim Students Federation (MSF), runs a campaign Pravakalkoru Neerkudam (a water pot for birds ) every year setting up birth baths with earthen pot. They used to set up such facility at 60 places across the area in summer. Dr B. Sreekumar, president, Kottayam Nature Society, never found a distinction between summer or winter in providing water for birds. “The birds like babblers and bulbuls do not drink water. They want to take a bath every day. Since most water bodies have either vanished or dried up, it’s the time to pledge to conserve the life of animals and birds” he said.