On a bird's trail

The third Great Himalayan Bird Count was carried out in the state recently when Nut Cracker, a new species, was sighted:

Anjali Nauriyal

The third Great Himalayan Bird Count was carried out recently and already over 70 per cent of the participants have registered for the next count. The new species sighted this time was the Nut Cracker. Participants included those from abroad including from the USA, Singapore and Sri Lanka. Gentlemen Cadets from the Indian Military Academy registered their first entry and have now become permanent partakers. There was encouraging participation from the rural youth and schools from the valley, chiefly the Hope Town Girls' School. The participants, the maximum of whom came in from Mumbai, went on a bird trail to the different river valleys and came back ecstatic about the impact of the natural beauty of Uttarakhand. In other words, everything went off well with the effort, except that the Tourism Department that stands to gain the most from this expedition was conspicuous by its absence.

Their absence was amply made up by the participation of the Forest Department though that is ready to now get into an MOU with Action & Research for Conservation in Himalayas (ARCH) for perpetuity seeing the all round benefit the entire exercise would accrue for the state and its environment concerns. Indeed the efforts of ARCH are now beginning to bear fruit. Just into its third year and ARCH has created a niche for itself in environmental conservation through its impetus to this rare bird movement.

Prateek Panwar, the founder trustee of ARCH, says, "We are proud that ARCH is today a nationally-known organization, working in the field of wildlife conservation involving young minds from rural and urban." The PCCF, Dr. R.B.S. Rawat, who flagged off the bird count 2010, expressed elation at the fact that as many as 122 bird watchers and internationally known ornithologists participated in this initiative. He avers, "Since its very conception, people in great numbers have been travelling from very far off places like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Surat, Rajkot, Goa, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Punjab to join hands for this novel and unique cause. But with time this small initiative has grown in popularity so huge that this time bird scientists have come from foreign countries as well. This truly augurs well for this amazing movement."

This time the Count was planned on 36 most popular trekking trails situated in the river-valleys of Tons; Yamuna; Bhagirithi; Bhilingna; Ganga; Mandakini and Alaknanda in Garhwal Himalayas including Asan and Jhilmil Jheel Conservation Reserves in Dehradun and Haridwar districts, respectively. During the orientation and briefing seminar, the participants enjoyed interactive sessions with internationally-known bird watcher like Raju Kasambe, National Coordinator, Indian Birds Conservation Network, BNHS, Shyam Ghate, Anil Kunte, Anuj Jain from Singapore, Rima Dhillon and Sarabjeet Kaur who travelled all the way from Singapore.

Sudeep Jugran, who has taken time out from film assignment in Mumbai just to volunteer for this conservation cause, states, "What impresses me about this exercise is the simple fact that many people are coming for the third time, which is indeed unique."

Another highlight of this year's count was the maiden launch of Mobile Bird Recorder in association with ARCH, Dehradun, developed by Phanindra Sarma and Suman Kumar, where this free software application allows birders to record sightings and creates birding lists from field trips. It is a highly integrated platform offering host of user friendly features to birding enthusiasts in the country. It can also be downloaded free. The count involves four days of vigorous field activity including long trekking. The concluding session was presided over by the former chief secretary Dr. R.S. Tolia as the chief guest.