House Sparrow Population in the City Shows a Chequered Pattern

Travancore Nature History Society (TNHS), the city-based NGO, striving to protect the environment  and create an awareness for up-keeping the rich bio-diversity of southern Western Ghats and its penumbral regions, has been engaged in taking counts of the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) seen in and around Thiruvananthapuram city, ever since March 20 has come to be observed as World Sparrow Day (WSD) in 2010. This year also, during the run up to the Day, members of the Society scouted the nook and corner of the city, noting down the numbers of the birds. A general trend observed in 2020 was a marginal to significant fall in the number of sparrows over last couple of years in known sparrow hubs like Connemara market, Chalai and Vettucaud regions. Whereas in pockets such as Sulaiman Street and Beemapallly,  there were sharp increase in its numbers.

Migratory Birds Make an Early Visit to Winter Homes in Capital - Article on The New Indian Express Newspaper about TNHS wetland bird monitoring (October 07 2014)

Migrant birds are here already, says a group of bird watchers from the city.The migratory birds usually arrive around December, but the bird enthusiasts from Travancore Natural History Society (TNHS) say that they have already spotted some visitors in Poovar and Veli as early as October.

Dr Kalesh S, co-founder of TNHS, says that this is not very unusual as this could be the first wave of migrants.“Last time, we had spotted rare birds like Saunders’s tern and Little tern in Veli. Those haven’t arrived yet. In the coming days, we plan to go on more birding trips to Poovar and Veli. It will be a good season for four months now.”

The memento (October 1 2014)

The memento: Presented by the Honorable Minster of Forests and Environment of Kerala,to TNHS for organizing the Wildlife Photography exhibition at Forest Office Complex in Trivandrum.

Exotic butterflies come calling - Article on The Hindu newspaper about Baiju K's & Kalesh S's work on Trivandrum Zoo Butterfly park (June 20, 2014)

The Red Pierrot warmed up quickly to its new ‘hosts.’ This striking little butterfly fluttered around the new plants in the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo, brought here only a couple of hours ago on Monday morning. R. Baiju watched, almost endearingly, as the unusual butterfly species finally adopted a leaf as its home, or egg-laying spot, even before the plants were taken out of their bags and planted into the soil.

He is a Hindi teacher of a government upper primary school in Palode but he was on leave on Monday to engage in a serious hobby of his. Mr. Baiju is one of the more active members of the Travancore Natural History Society (TNHS), the group that is supporting the city zoo in its endeavour to transform the neglected ‘Butterfly Park’ on its premises.