Birdwatchers lose reason to flock

Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. Usually, the month of February is considered the best time for bird watching in the Northern parts of the country with migratory birds from all around the globe preparing for their journey back home, with their newborns.
For the connoisseurs of this hobby, three bird sanctuaries around Agra - Keetham, Ghana and Patna Bird sanctuaries offer the ultimate attraction of watching migratory birds arriving from Central Asia, Eastern Europe and as far as the Arctic circle.

But this year, while these birds are still nesting in Ghana and Keetham sanctuaries, they have bid an early farewell to the Patna Bird sanctuary, located near Jalesar about 50 km. away from Agra, giving this lake a ghostly appearance without the ceaseless chattering of the birds.

According to local residents, the birds had arrived very late in this bird sanctuary this year and they had not appeared to be interested in nesting in this region but they had experienced such cases of late arrival of migratory birds earlier too though they had never seen the birds making such a hasty departure from the sanctuary.

While the wildlife authorities attribute this abrupt departure of the birds to the high temperatures prevailing in the region over the past month. Bird-watchers returning disheartened from the sanctuary claimed it was the low volume of water in the lake that was the reason behind this. They claimed that the birds had not even cared to nest in the lake area and as a result, most of them returned home without giving birth to a new generation.

Zoological experts in Agra claimed that the lack of sufficient rest and low availability of food could cause a serious reduction in the number of migratory birds arriving in the bird sanctuaries near Agra next year.

But the UP Wildlife Authorities are in no mood to accept these "doomsday predictions" being made by the experts claiming that such phases were temporary and the number of birds arriving in the sanctuary would recover by the next year, provided the environmental conditions were favourable.

Talking to The Pioneer, Agra Deputy Forest Conservator (Wildlife), KK Singh said that the drop in the bird population was not as disastrous as was being predicted.

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