It's raining baby sparrows in Dubai

Dubai: It's raining birds. Residents across Dubai are finding little winged creatures crashing down on them at home and near the workplace as small bird chicks are falling out of their nests.

Four birds in four days so far this week were found by Berveley Milner, 28, from the UK and colleagues around Dubai Media City and Umm Suqueim.

According to Dubai Zoo Director Dr Reza Khan, the chicks are baby house sparrows and from their plumage turning brown, he said they look around 15 days - the age they usually try to fly the nest.

"This is nature's way of controlling things. They are very difficult to keep alive and should be put back where they were found. The parents will take care of them. The babies beg for food and sometimes fall out of the nest," said Dr Khan.

House sparrows breed all year round and the survival rate of chicks is about 20 per cent. "If all the sparrows in Dubai had chicks that survived we would be overrun with the birds," he said.

"I find minor birds in my garden all the time. I put him back in the nest and he seems to have been accepted back. A colleague of mine in Umm Suqueim found two or three baby house sparrows that had fallen out of the nests at his villa which he put back but they kept coming out weren't so lucky," said Milner.