 After learning so much about birds, I am sure you would like to have them near your house and garden, so that you can watch them and gain more information about them. Birds will come near you if you place food for them and provide simple nesting-boxes for them to build little nurseries and rear their young.
You can watch them building their nests and feeding their young ones, but you must take care to keep still and not to go too near them. If they feel disturbed, they will desert the nest and start another at some safer place, where you won't be able to see them. You may take a peep at the babies when they are hatched and when their parents have gone to being food for them. Never, never try to take one from the nest; baby birds are delicate little things and they can be injured easily.
You can scatter some millet or other grain in suitable spot in your garden. Conceal yourself carefully and be still. A little sparrow is bound to come hopping along. While approaching the food, it will cock its head first to one side and then to the other, to make sure that there are no enemies lurking around. It may even fly off without eating, but do not get impatient (patient is a great asset in bird watching). Finally, it will come back with a whole bunch of other sparrows whirring to the spot and settle down to feed.
If you can lay your hands on a coconut, cut it into half with a saw, bore a hole in each half, put in some strong string and hang the two halves upside down on some tree or outside the window. Coconut provides a very good feast for the birds. The tits specially are very fond of it.
Some day bring a large hollow bone from a butcher's shop, clean it, put in some fat or mashed potatoes and hang it in a favourable place in a tree which you can visit now and then.
 You can also make two kinds of food tables. Fasten a board, on a pole, which must be at least one meter high so that no cat can reach it. Stand it in some shady place and put some food on it. The second type is a board suspended by strings from the branch of a tree, the string going through four holes at the four corners of the board. Do not forget to put water on the tables. The vessel containing water must be fastened to the table, else it will soon get upset. Birds drink very often and love splashing, especially in the summer.
If you have any old or dead trees in your garden, do not chop them off. In such trees you will find many natural holes and hollows which a number of birds like to use as a nursery.
If a dead or old tree spoils the look of your garden, you can plant some beautiful creepers near it, like the bridal-creeper or bougainvillea, to cover up the tree. This will beautify your garden and the birds will stay with you too.
Similarly, you can build nesting-boxes. But first you have to take into account the following facts: the type of sites that birds like for nesting; the kind of nests they build; and the materials they use. Different species of birds have different tastes and needs and your effort will be wasted if the little houses do not suit the birds in your neighbourhood. If you carefully examine the cavities in trees and stumps which birds naturally use, you will find a wide variety in size, shape and location.
Here are a few simple rules on the making and placing of nesting-boxes:
• The opening of nest-boxes should be several inches above the floor of the box.
• • The nest-boxes should be erected on poles from three to ten metres above the ground, or fastened to the sides of trees whose branches do not block the view.
• • • All boxes should be taken down after the nesting season is over, and cleaned for the next season.
Nesting-boxes need not be expensive; they can be made easily out of ply-wood or deal wood, empty soap-boxes and packing cases. You can make all the boxes yourself.
 Now for some, more details about nesting-boxes. First and foremost, they must be waterproof and well ventilated. They should be painted in soft woodland tints like brown, gray or dull green.
The nesting-boxes can be of various shapes, and their sizes should suit the size of the birds for whom they are meant. Thus, for the myna, the box should have a floor about 15 cm x 15 cm and height of 45 cm; the entrance should be about 15 cm above the floor, and the entrance hole may be 5 cm in diameter.
For the sparrow, the box should be 15 cm high, and it should be open on all sides. For an owl, the floor should be 25 cm x 45 cm, the height 45 cm, the entrance 10 cm above floor level and 20 cm in diameter. For a woodpecker, the box should be 38 cm high, the entrance 30 cm above floor level and 5 cm in diameter.
These nesting-boxes should be so placed that they are shaded during the heat of the day, but let in some sunlight in the mornings and evening.
By providing food and nesting-boxes for birds, you may notice many types; even the very shy ones will come near you. You are; in fact, setting up a bird refuge-commonly called a bird "sanctuary"- in your garden, where they will be safe from harm, protected from hunters and marauders, and from hunger and thirst. It is you who will guard them.
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