Rise in flamingo flock to State elates TN foresters

Bird watchers and foresters in the State are enthralled over the sighting of the increased number of flamingoes this season. The birders also exchanged their views with the principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj, who conducted a first-ever all Tamil Nadu Migratory and terrestrial bird census meeting for watchers, ornithologists and foresters on Thursday.

Niraj, who recently visited Point Calimere in a two-wheeler expedition also recorded the sighting of a flamingo chick, a rare event. “More than 7,00,000 migratory birds have been estimated in the southern coasts of Tamil Nadu between January 9-13. This has been recorded for the first time in the whole of the last decade. About 20,000 greater flamingos were sighted along Muthupet and Pichavaram mudflats. Three institutional partners comprising senior scientists from the Bombay Natural History Society, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and Dr Salim Ali Centre for Conservation of Nature, Coimbatore, along with 38 district and circle level officers took part in the pre-census meeting,” Niraj told DT Next.

A massive but critical exercise for the Department, the census will be divided into three phases. The first phase will be conducted on January 24 over two days for coastal and shorebirds all along the coasts of Tamil Nadu. The second phase would be a week later over two days for the important inland wetlands. The coastal birds use the inlands water bodies diurnally for ecological purposes, Niraj said. The third and final phase will focus on the census of the terrestrial birds in all inland conservation areas, such as all the five tiger reserves, all national parks and wildlife sanctuaries and important identified bird areas, the warden added.

Members of civil society, non-governmental organisations, universities and college students and others who want to participate could join the census after contacting the respective district level forest officer in-charge. The census will focus on the assessment of species abundance, migratory species composition, and species diversity and population changes. Nesting and breeding of the migratory species will be an important aspect to be explored during the census, foresters who attended the meeting, said.