Chinsurah, Sept. 29: The birds went missing two-three years ago.

Now, nature activists are wooing them back by building nests for them.

Few years ago, sparrows started vanishing from Calcutta. So did shaliks, doyels and tuntunis.

The disappearance was attributed to the indiscriminate setting up of mobile towers.

Environmentalists suggested that sparrows, always a part of the city's life, left because of rampant construction that meant felling of trees and old buildings where the birds could nest earlier.

With the construction boom spreading everywhere, the birds disappeared from the suburbs and district towns like Chinsurah, the Hooghly district headquarters, 35km from Calcutta, as well.

In Chinsurah, apartment blocks are coming up either in new places or by pulling down old buildings. The latter is more common.

Two years ago, the property value was Rs 2,100 per sqft. Now, it stands at Rs 2,800 per sqft.

With sparrows, shaliks, doyels and tuntunis becoming rare, a group of young activists here is trying to get the little birds, especially the sparrows, back by building them nests.

Sparrows play an important role to maintain subtle ecological balance by helping in pollination.

Nests for Nature and Social Development, an NGO, has been building straw nests inside empty paint containers that have a coat of green and placing them where they hope sparrows are likely to settle down. The nests are being placed at strategic spots in schools, with students helping to feed the birds.

Recently, the organisation held a workshop at Shatin Sen Vidyapith, one of he oldest schools at Kapasdanga in Chinsurah and Rahul Biswas and Ashis Sen, two Class IX students, took part in it.

"I love animals and birds. One day, some youths came to our school during tiffin break and taught us how to make perfect nests with straw inside paint containers. They set up four such nests in our school building. Now, we give food to the birds that come to the nests," said Rahul.

The NGO has been collecting subscriptions for building the nests in different schools in Hooghly district.

They started work two months ago.

"There are about 20-22 of us in the organisation. There is no reason to believe that the number of birds is dwindling because of adverse effects of mobile towers," secretary of the NGO, Chandan Clement Singh, said. "The birds don't have places to nest. In the past, our homes had ventilators. But these days, houses do not have such ventilators. Now, nobody washes utensils outside the house. The birds do not get to eat the leftovers," he said.

Singh said the organisation was buying small fibre paint containers from the market and making a small hole at the sides through which a bird can enter.

"So far, we have put up nests on top of five school buildings, including two in Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas. It is nice to see that birds have been coming," said Pevisha Das, 22, a member of the organisation.

Pevisha, who has recently completed a course on tourism management, said they were using 500mm plastic bottles to feed rice to the birds.

"Two spoons are being inserted from the sides into the middle of each bottle so that the handles of the spoons touch. When the birds put pressure on the handles with their beaks, the rice inside the bottles automatically thrown up. We hang the bottles in school verandahs," explained Pevisha.

She said tin nests with boxes or plywood nests had been built for shaliks, doyels and tuntunis.

Pevisha said they had requested schools to spare some rice from the mid-day meal quota for the birds.

"One bottle of rice will be enough for some birds for a few days. The students have been asked to take care and feed the birds regularly. We shall give awards to students who would successfully carry out the job," said Pevisha.

Headmaster of Shatin Sen Vidyapith, Mahitosh Chandra, said the school would ask the organisation to hold a bigger workshop. "It is nice to see the students of my school taking a keen interest in the project," he said.