World house sparrow day.. march 20

There are how many house sparrows in your nearest street???.. you may give me an approximate number.. in the future you will give me the exact count "0". but in thge past it was countless.. do you remember... small birds on the electric lines.. ?..

The cheerful house sparrows, once commonly seen flitting around the neighbourhood, are vanishing from the centre of many cities and rural areas. Their recent decline has put them on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List category.

According to the latest sparrow census put together by various environmental organisations, there has been an 80 per cent decline in their numbers during the past decade. The disappearance of sparrows in India has been widely reported, but responses have been quite muted so far.

To draw the attention of government agencies and the scientific community for more conservation measures and research on common bird species and urban biodiversity, March 20 will be celebrated and marked as World House Sparrow Day

House sparrows are used to build their nest bellow roofs of tiled houses, and pockets in the walls etc.. now due to urbanization and change in style of architecture the are not getting places for nesting..

They are on the way to follow cheetah, and passenger pigeon.. let us save them..

Elaeocarpus tuberculatus and Nilgiri marten..

Observations suggests that the Nilgiri marten prefers the bhadraksham tree Elaeocarpus tuberculatus. It was assumed that the surface of the tree provides hollows and other suitable resting places for the animal. The medium sized tree with its liberal sprinkling of saffron coloured mature leaves is common along river banks in evergreen forests and its presence usually indicates a water body nearby. It is the proximity of the waterbody, which offers better hunting opportunities rather than the tree itself, the preference for tree is more likely for gaining a better vantage point for hunting and also as a safe resting place. Thus frugivorous diet may have also developed as a result of this..

There are thousands of association like this in a forest.. then, when you cut a single tree , what will be the effect in an ecosystem..???????

The great photographer and his little carnivore.....

N A Naseer writes about Nilgiri marten of pambadum shola National park.

"Lightning never strikes the same place twice or so it is believed. for me my experiences in the pambadum shola forest in kerala proved otherwise. It all began 20 years ago when i saw a nilgiri marten" Martes gwatkinsii" during my novice years in these parts of southern western ghats. i was too green then to understand how fortunate i was to sight this endemic rarity. for me it was just one among the multitude of small and big creatures to which our dark and mysterious forest are home.."

N A Naseer have acquired a decent reputation as a wildlife photographer and naturalist, both the life and his researches are much more inspiring like our corbett, anderson etc.. and I am too happy to share that i am a fan of him. when i reported a Nilgiri marten from the eravikulam national park, there was no one to hear me or to believe me, i was having a clear sight but unfortunately there was no one to report that i had a sight.at that moment i fixed the photograph of nilgiri marten taken by N.A Naseer in 2006 to my heart and i determined to take a photograph of that little amazing endemic carnivore...

he describes the second sight as

" it had only been a few minutes when we saw a small mangoose like animal with an incongruously long tail, rubbing its head and neck on the grasss and rocks along the path. its skin had a yellow patch that, in the morning sunlight almost appeared as if the animal was holding a dazzling gold bar close to its chest. it was a nilgiri marten and amazingly enough it was in the exact spot i had had my first sighting 20years ago.

An endemic mammal.. Nilgiri marten...

Like the Nilgiri tahr and rhododendron of the southern western ghats, the nilgiri marten is the south indian, estranged cousin of the Himalayan yellow throated marten . There is very little documented information on the Nilgiri marten and most of the recently recorded sightings are from forests in Kerala's western ghats.

Sighting indicate that it prefers high elevation forests with a strong inclination towards southern montane wet temperate forests. the omnivorous Nilgiri marten is known to forage on coffee beans but locals vividly describe it as an expert hunter of hare, squirrels ,barking deer, mouse deer..there have ben reports of four martens eating the carrion of a wild gaur and of a pair chasing the domestic dogs of firewood gatherers.