I have been living in New Bombay, for all practical purposes a suburb of Bombay, for over 7 years now. You know how this city’s residential areas are ... hardly any bungalows, each building with several flats in it.

Absolutely adamant about having some greenery around, I have maintained a small balcony garden. The old maali, who drops in whenever he feels like it and helps out, would argue that it is more of a jungle than a garden. He cannot understand why I refuse to let him cut, trim and manicure my garden. To tell you the truth, I cannot give a very convincing reason— I just like it wild, the way nature likes to grow, unhindered.

I have different species of climbers which happily intertwine, plants which spread from one pot to another with no respect for boundaries, different species growing in the same pot ... I do not interfere, loath to curtail growth of any kind. I do remove an occasional troublesome weed, but that’s about it.

Just near my building there was a beautiful drumstick tree, and my second floor flat was the perfect height from which to watch birds that came to it, particularly when it was in bloom. Sun birds and mynas, and later some house sparrows— which I had not seen in a  while.

The sparrows would pluck the leaves with their beaks; I am not sure what they did with it. Tailor birds and Ashy wrens came too, as did the bulbuls (red-whiskered as well as red-vented).

The tree’s branches were also a favourite perch for crows, who destroyed my sleep with their cacophony early in the morning. But that was a small price to pay— the benefits far outweighed the nuisance. Sadly, though, one day 3 or 4 years ago, the tree was cut for no apparent reason.

I  miss the tree; beautiful, delicate, fern-like in appearance, it was a lovely sight. I miss the fragrance of its flowers, and missed the birds that no longer came that way. Many of us in that housing colony had enjoyed its fruits too ... what an abundance of it the tree put forth!

But by then the vines and other plants in my balcony had grown enough, I suppose, to draw the attention of the birds. To my great delight, they started visiting my balcony. The bulbuls in particular came frequently for the berries of the Indian Spinach (basale in Kannada, Bacchali in Telugu) of which I have both the red (Basella rubra) and white (Basella alba) varieties.

The red-whiskered bulbuls started getting bolder by the week, and explored far beyond the plants they feasted on. They came to perch on the window of the living room, and once they found some fruit there, kept coming back. They are still shy, mind you. They first come and sit on one of the cross bars of the window; if they happen to find me in the room, they fly away, rather insultingly, I sometimes think. 

But if the room is empty, even if there are people in other rooms, they would come in and partake of guavas and bananas from my fruit bowl. They do leave a mess around it, but I do not mind at all.

From time to time other birds which used to visit the tree come to the balcony too— they hop about, pick at something among the plants— I  don’t quite know what. Two years in a row, spotted munias decided to nest in the grill work that enclosed my neighbour’s balcony, adjacent to mine. The tiny bird is not nearly as easy to spot as the long green blade of grass in tow, waving like a ribbon. I wish I had grill work on mine— my neighbour does not particularly like the idea of strange birds setting up a home in hers and she kept removing the hay. That seems to have successfully deterred the birds from coming back; a pity.

Return of the sparrow

But what inspired me to share this story was the comeback of the house sparrow.

A year or so after the tree was cut, I noticed that sparrows started coming to my balcony ... picking up dried twigs from the vines, and pecking through a small cut in the seat of a bicycle that had been kept there. I discovered they were carrying off pieces of foam from the seat cushion. I found too that the jute string with which I fastened plants to their bamboo support were picked off by them. They were looking for nesting material! I started putting out more jute strings and cotton wool, which I tie to a branch or stick. Amazing how fast they are gone. It seems like I can never leave enough of it. Occasionally I throw some rice grains around.

As I do every winter, or what passes for it in Bombay, I planted methi (fenugreek) last year; the tender shoots make a very tasty vegetable. I saw that the sparrows had started eating the leaves too. Perhaps they always did and I only caught them at it when I did; but I think I would have noticed if many of my shoots had had their leaves trimmed off. Anyway, once I found they liked it, I left whole potfuls of methi for the sparrows (I can always buy mine from the market).

This year I saw them eating tender leaves of Bombay basale (also known as Ceylon pasali, its botanical name is Talinum triangulaire).

Maybe if the flat I live in were in a noisier location, with traffic flow, the garden would not attract as many birds. It helps that we are at a location where there is no through traffic. It also helps that about half a kilometer away, as the crow flies, there is a wooded hillside. This probably is true for the other birds I have mentioned.

But, as Salim Ali’s wonderful description of the sparrow in the Book of Indian Birds points out, it is a “confirmed hanger-on of man”. I suspect the nesting material, the occasional food and the relative lack of disturbance attracts them. They have been coming more frequently now, almost all through the day every day. And they have been coming in larger numbers ... sometimes five or six come in, chattering noisily.

The thing is, my balcony is not always lush green. In fact, soon after the monsoon downpours end, the plants shed their leaves rather rapidly; sometimes some even have dry branches; there are plenty of perches for the birds. I wonder if that is what attracts them. Whatever it is, these sprightly birds are a joy to watch as they go about their various pursuits, cheeping constantly and with some antics thrown in for good measure.  I can watch them almost endlessly. I feel pleased and quite honoured that they choose to grace my balcony!