This picture is from one of the wetlands near Hubli, North Karnataka, where we would regularly see waterbirds. Rails and snipes were quite common, but that has now been replaced by an assured sighting of garbage.
On one of my recent visits, I saw this Brown Crake (Zapornia akool), one of the bolder rails, with its striking yellow beak. The IUCN Red List ranks it as a species of ‘Least Concern’. However, the wetlands scream a different story. Due … Read More
I visited Arunachal Pradesh recently for birding, and was enthralled by its beauty. The dense green mountains looked as if they were playing hide and seek with the moving clouds. The place was alive with the continuous chirping of birds. It was like being in paradise. We traveled from Nameri to Dirang and stopped at several places for birding. What really disturbed me was the pile of garbage that we saw in most places. Of the many places that I … Read More
The Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius), an endangered scavenger stork, is globally threatened, with an estimated population of 800-1200 mature individuals, out of which 650-800 are in Assam (Choudhury, 2000). Half of the Assamese population is found in and around Guwahati City (Choudhury, 2008) near the Boragaon Garbage dump, Deepor Beel, Guwahati. Deepor Beel, a permanent freshwater lake in a former channel of the Brahmaputra River, is a Ramsar site, which was originally over 40 sq km. Currently it is … Read More
Just a 20-minute drive from Kolkata lies this 13,75,000 sq feet lake, known as the Santragachi jheel or lake. The Santragachi lake is a great place for many migratory birds. Winter months (October to March) draw 4000 to 5000 ducks and waders to this safe haven. This season thousands of Lesser Whistling Ducks arrived along with Northern Pintails, Gadwalls, the endangered Ferruginous Pochard, Common Teal, Cotton Pygmy Goose and other waterfowl.
What is really the key feature of Santragachi is … Read More
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