Birdwatchers revel, courtesy longer, wetter winter

Small, but an influential number of bird-watchers would be thanking rain-Gods for longer and wetter winters as it brought some exotic birds from Siberia and Africa to some well-known water-bodies in northern parts of India, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 25, 2013, 24:39:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Small, but an influential number of bird-watchers would be thanking rain-Gods for longer and wetter winters as it brought some exotic birds from Siberia and Africa to some well-known water-bodies in northern parts of India.

The numbers of these birds have been much more than in the past years indicating at improving wetlands, thanks to incessant rains this winter. The Indian Metrological Department has described the winter in northern region as wettest in the last five years.

Sunday, celebrated as big bird day, was the occasion chosen by 291 groups across India for on-spot census of the birds spotted at green zones. By the evening, data starting pouring from northern India broadening smiles across bird-watchers as number of feathery beings has witnessed phenomenal increase.

“We recorded as many as 100 species of birds in two hours at Yamuna bio-diversity park,” Fayaz Khudsar, a wildlife biologist at the 300 acre park in north Delhi. Red-crested Pochard, a bird that flies from Siberia and Northern Shoveler, which traveled all the way from Europe, were some of the spotlights at the park. Also, clearly visible was the magnificent Ferruginous Paochard, a near threatened species as per International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, a world heritage site, over 200 bird species were reported on Sunday morning including While Pelicans in huge groups and Oriental Darter, a bird known for snapping a fish out of nowhere in a pond, were clearly visible many other birds known endemic to the region were spotted in the park.

The park had moving towards slow death till bird lovers created hue and cry and forced Rajasthan government to release water for wildlife there. This year, good rains and timely release of water has resulted in a good number of birds coming there including Cranes, not Siberian for which the park was once famous and many others. “The park has not revived,” said a Rajasthan forest official after a good haul of birds this winter.

Chambal wildlife sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh has also recorded highest number of birds in the last decade and so has been case with south Delhi bird area of Asola-Bhatti, which reported around 44 species on Sunday. “The number is good and some birds not native of south Delhi made Asola green area there home,” said an official at the Asola park.

Having good bird numbers not just delights bird-watchers but also means higher footfall of tourists and students. “The number of tourists this year has been highest in the last five years,” said an official at Bharatpur park. “We have more requests from schools wanting to visit our park than the park can accommodate,” Khudsar said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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