To protect bird’s nest, Thanjavur farmer leaves crop unharvested

To protect bird’s nest, Thanjavur farmer leaves crop unharvested

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Trichy:20.02.2021

A farmer hailing from a village near Kumbakonam in Thanjavur has earned the appreciation of people for leaving a portion of his paddy field unharvested after spotting the nest and eggs of a sparrow. He went on to strengthen the nest with sticks and harvesteed the rest of the crop.

J Ranganathan alias Raghu, 40, had raised paddy on his three-acre plot in Sathanur village. As the crops completed their 120-day cycle and were ready for harvest, Ranganathan used a harvester machine. As he was operating the harvester, he spotted a bird’s nest over the paddy crop at at a height of three feet in a portion of his field. After alerting the harvester operator to stop, Ranganathan checked the nest and found four eggs of a sparrow. “Since the mother bird may come back to see the chicks once they hatch, I was not interested in moving the nest from the field. We let that portion as it was and harvested the rest of the field,” Ranganathan said. He also propped up four sticks around the crop holding the nest to ensure the nest and eggs did not fall. Ranganathan added that he did not expect that his act may attract such appreciation. As the farmer shared the incident on social media platforms, villagers and environmental activists appreciated Ranganathan for his humane gesture. Meanwhile, Trichy-based wildlife biologist Q Ashoka Chakkaravarthy said that habitat loss for birds due to rapid urbanisation and felling of trees was the major reason for sparrows to build nest in paddy fields. “Sparrows normally build a nest on trees at a significant height above the ground. The paddy field might have been chosen by the bird due to low human interference,” Ashoka Chakkaravarthy added.

CONSIDERATE ACT: The undisturbed nest of a sparrow in the paddy field of J Ranganathan near Kumbakonam