UAE | General
It's raining baby sparrows in 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.
- By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:22 August 11, 2008
- Dubai resident Berveley Milner has found four little birds in four days this week.
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
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.
Share this article
More from UAE General
More from UAE
Popular in UAE
-
Your pictures
Readers' pictures
The best reader pictures from around the UAE this week
Latest news
- Dance group brings taste of Korean culture to Abu Dhabi
- Africa segment at Dubai film festival
- Campaign to emphasise unity of UAE begins
- EAD studies focus on water security
- Facing battle against obesity in UAE schools
- Abu Dhabi plans to take comedy seriously
- Dubai Press Club marks 10th anniversary
- Visitors flock to see latest offerings at Sharjah book fair
- UAE combats human trafficking
- Ministry denies hijacking of UAE-flagged ship
- Saif meets special needs centre users
- Man says he repaid 95% of amount he embezzled
- Dubai saleswoman claims she was duped, raped
- Female clerk, waiter deny drug trafficking charges
- Gulf health officials slam unethical advertising
Community Reports
-
Help me find my precious cat
Raif, my cute eight-month-old ‘fur ball', went missing in Abu Dhabi's Al Bateen area last month
-
Pavement parking irks pedestrians
Gulf News reader calls on authorities to step in and stop car owners from invading pathways meant for safe walking
-
Faded parking lines pose a problem
Motorists could be fined for parking incorrectly even though they can hardly see the boundaries in the designated areas
-
School buses block residential parking
Commercial vehicles taking up free parking facilities in Al Wuheida, inconveniencing residents in surrounding villas
