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Winter is here, so are the birds

The coming of the cold season brings with it events in the natural world that are as spectacular as they are mysterious, and as breathtaking as they are epic in proportion. It's a humbling experience to those of us who care to take note, says PANKAJ SEKHSARIA.

AFP

A great journey -- Insights into and information about migration have come mainly from bird-ringing.

THE mercury has clearly dipped. The nights are longer, the woollens are out and there is festivity in the air. The same air also has a nip; the nip of winter. This season means different things in different places: snow in the Himalayas, gajar ka halwa across north India, monsoon showers in large parts of the south-and north-eastern India and a tourist invasion in the more popular beach resorts, like in Goa. Then, of course, there is Deepavali, Id, Christmas, and the birds and the turtles too.

The natural world stirs to life

REUTERS

The coming of the cold season in the Indian subcontinent brings with it two of the most significant developments in the natural world — events that are as spectacular as they are mysterious, journeys that are breathtaking, huge, even epic in proportion; proof, if it were needed, of nature's magnificence; a humbling experience to that small portion of humanity which cares to notice and participate in these wonderful events.

One of these journeys touches us all as millions of winged creatures run over, rather, fly over this entire land mass. "Bird migration"! Where ever one is, be it city, town or village; on the coast, on the banks of a river or that of a lake, in the grasslands or in the forests, you cannot miss these birds. Millions of winged denizens from the northern latitudes, flying away from the freezing cold, travel huge distances, traversing through the Himalayan passes, occasionally flying over these mighty mountains to the warmth and comfort of the subcontinent. The diversity too is astounding, be it colour, shape or size. There are the sparrow sized "wagtails" and also the cranes that stand nearly four feet tall; waders that inhabit the shallow margins of water bodies; ducks like the pintail (they have long pin-like feathers projecting beyond the tail) and shovellers (they have a shovel shaped beak) and also the harriers (those graceful and powerful hunters on the wing), preying on unsuspecting smaller birds, lizards and frogs.

It's also a huge longitudinal canvas that these birds fly in from: Germany in the west (about 10°E) to the shores of Lake Bailkal in Russia (about 110°E) in the East, funnelling in, as it were into the landmass of the subcontinent. These insights into and information about bird-migration have come mainly from bird-ringing, when birds with small, light rings around their legs are caught again in a distant land. Sample this from The Book of Indian Birds by the late Dr. Salim Ali, "... It was by means of a German-ringed stork accidentally recovered in Bikaner that we now know that some at least of the white storks that visit us in winter are `Made in Germany'... Yellow wagtails ringed in Kerala during winter were recovered on passage in Kabul, Afghanistan, the following spring and at Bannu, N.W. Pakistan, in the succeeding autumn. A forest wagtail ringed in Kerala in February was killed in the Chin Hills of Burma in April. Spanish and Turkestan sparrows ringed in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, in early spring were recovered on their nesting grounds in Kazakstan in summer."

Salim Ali, a legend

If there are so many million birds with so much variety, can the bird watchers be far behind? The best known of them, perhaps was, and still is, the late Dr. Salim Ali, who took observing and studying birds to a different plane of human endeavour. His legacy still lives on. And so there are today, this Sunday, even as you read along, hundreds, maybe a few thousand humans out in the open watching birds; men and women, young and old, somewhere on a mountain, in a forest or by a water body, cap on head, a pair of binoculars around neck, The Book of Indian Birds in hand, peeping into the lives and activities of these yearly winged visitors. To many it might seem a mindless activity and a waste of precious human resource and time. Just try talking to any of these increasing tribe of bird watchers and you'll get a different story. Better still, take a trip out with them and you'll know what keeps them going. Literally!

Watching birds is one among those few human activities that provide sheer, unadulterated joy to the human soul; filling it with a sense of complete wonder at the magnificence of nature, akin to an evening spent listening to Bach or Beethoven, the strains of Pandit Ravi Shankar's sitar, or the haunting voice of a M.S. Subbalakshmi or a Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

Bird migration is a phenomenon that connects countries, even continents. If only it could help a little more in connecting the hearts of the people who live along the thousands of kilometres these birds travel, the world might actually be a better place. But then, no one asked the birds. In any case for members of the human species, being called bird brained has always been an insult; rarely if ever, a compliment.

And then the turtles

That brings us to the sea-turtles, the predecessors of birds and humans in the evolutionary ladder by at least a few million years. Their's is the other journey, the more remote and mysterious one and unlike our feathered visitors, does not directly touch the lives of us all. We don't yet know where they come from, but just about the time the birds start to fly in, thousands of Olive Ridley turtles, following a primal instinct, start to converge in the waters off India's long coastline. We know that the turtles mate and the females climb on to the beaches to lay their eggs in the darkness of remote nights. This happens along the entire coastline, from Gujarat in the north-west, right along to the Sunderban delta in West Bengal, including the pristine and remote beaches on the islands of Lakshadweep, the Andaman and the Nicobar. Nothing, however, matches the happenings off the Orissa coast, where an estimated 5,00,000 turtles nest on the beaches of the Gahirmatha Wildlife Sanctuary and at the mouths of Devi and Rushikulya rivers. This mass nesting called arribada (arrival in Spanish) is one of the largest and most significant such event anywhere on the surface of the earth.

I've not seen this arribada in Orissa ... but in the Andaman islands, on dark, starlit nights and remote beaches, where a cool breeze blows into your face and the only sound is that of the carelessly lashing ocean waves ... . In the company of a couple of fellow humans, I've watched the Olive Ridleys nesting on a multitude of occasions; always humbled, grateful for being alive, and for the opportunity to witness this incredible spectacle of nature.

But (there's always a but) even on these remote beaches and in the even remoter ocean depths, these turtles are not safe.

Threats from man

PANKAJ SEKHSARIA

On the beach -- nesting Olive Ridleys.

We know now that for the last few years, thousands of these Olive Ridleys, particularly along the Orissa coast are being killed annually, trapped in the nets of fisher folk whose trawlers ply in these waters. Over the last few years, there has undoubtedly been a huge effort to deal with the problem. Researchers have worked hard, an effort has been made towards education and awareness, the fisher folk communities are willing to participate and help, laws have been put into place, the media has taken up the issue, and various agencies like the Forest Department, the Fisheries Department, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard are all on board. New pressures and threats, however, keep coming up with alarming regularity. Increasingly now, these are from misconceived notions of development: oil drilling, port construction, tourism projects, defence establishments. A major business house has been granted permits to explore for oil and gas in the waters where the turtles swim and feed. Two other corporate giants, have recently signed a deal for the construction of a mega-port at Dhamra just north of the turtle nesting sites of Gahirmatha. There is serious concern that for the turtles, this is a potent recipe for disaster. These are risks simply not worth taking.

This winter's still young, and already, as we go to press, there are reports that the ridleys are beginning to be sited in the waters off Orissa.

The big question is: How long will we allow them to? Helpless and powerless, they are being forced into a vicious net. What notion of development is this, one is forced to ask, that offers no space for an ancient creature that has been around for a few million years? What development will it be that will deny our future generations the joy and privilege of watching an Olive Ridley nest on a remote beach in some remote corner of the earth? Will we only rest when all the turtles are gone, when all the species of fishes have been fished and when the entire coastline of Orissa is lit up for purposes of defence, development and tourism?

No small corner of the sea or land for an ancient animal?

Wonder what the turtles would themselves have to say! And the birds too?

Ready reckoner for bird watchers

Source: Newsletter for Ornithologists Editor: Aasheesh Pittie

8-2-545 Road No. 7, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh — 500034.

E-mail: aasheesh@vsnl.in

Bird conservation organisations: