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Srinagar: With a rise
in mercury, flocks of pochards, mallards, shovellers and other
winged visitors are gearing up to bid adieu to the famous Hokarsar
bird reserve here and head back to their summer homes in Siberia,
China and Japan.
Thousands of them had made Jammu and Kashmir their home in the
harsh winter.
"The eldest of the flock leads the journey back as scores of
others line up behind the leader to fly thousands of miles back to
their summer homes," Pir Mushtaq, range officer at this bird
reserve, told IANS.
"Different species of birds fly separately and usually they prefer
clear night skies to begin the journey. It is a marvel of
navigation that baffles even the best flight engineers of the
world," he says.
He tells how these birds, wigeons, greylag geese, teals, brahmany
ducks, coots, gadwalls and pintails eat vigorously to add to their
bodyweight and fat before migrating to summer homes in East
Europe, Japan Siberia, China and Japan and the Philippines.
"The distance is long and the journeys are tough...so much so that
a greylag goose, that weighs around seven pounds at the start of
migration, weighs just three pounds at the end of it," Mushtaq
says.
He has been studying bird behaviour inside the reserve for over
three years now.
"I have a strong emotional attachment with them and this perhaps
is the reason why I took very few vacations during the winter
months when this wetland was thronged by thousands of migratory
birds," he says.
Spread over 13.75 sq km, the reserve is well guarded by
boundaries. And if that is not sufficient, there is security guard
Gulam Hassan Dar to keep poachers at bay.
"Poachers sometimes use horse hair loops to trap unsuspecting
birds and I keep vigil to ensure nobody lays a trap," says Dar,
who has been guarding the bird reserve for 20 years.
"The reserve needs a lot of care, especially during the winter
freeze when the birds are unable to find their choice of food of
Trapa nuts, which grows in the reserve waters.
"We had to arrange a lot of paddy for the birds this winter as the
water bodies froze for many days because of sub-zero
temperatures," he adds.
As he rows a boat showing bird watchers around, flocks of teals,
mallards and brahmany ducks fly past the boat.
"Don't worry. They will fly round the reserve and then settle down
again," he says while looking at them fondly. "They huddle
together during the extreme cold and their body temperatures
prevent small pools of water around from getting frozen," he says.
"In the evenings, the greylag geese and other species leave the
reserve and fly to Wullar Lake and other larger water bodies for
feeding. They invariably come back in the mornings," he adds.
Located just 10 km away from city centre Lal Chowk, privacy is a
far cry for these warbling guests.
Residential houses have come up all around the bird reserve.
Discharge of effluents from human settlements is polluting the
water inside the reserve.
"Despite this, we are doing our best to preserve the environment
inside the reserve," says the range officer in charge of the
reserve. "No shooting is allowed in and around the reserve as
wildlife laws of the state forbid shooting of any sort, except
with a camera!" says the officer.
"We are developing infrastructure at the reserve to make it a
tourist destination under eco-tourism. This is done through
desilting, de-weeding and regulation of optimum water levels
inside the reserve," he adds.
He also talks about a recent phenomenon wherein mallards --
finding the environs congenial for breeding -- are spending their
summer here, ignoring nature's call for reverse migration.
As the range officer tells the story, a flock of cackling geese
settles at a distance.
"It is time to leave the birds alone. We should not tire them for
long. They have to undertake their long journey back to their
summer homes in the coming days," the officer says while directing
the guard to row back the boat to shore.
(F. Ahmed can be contacted at f.ahmed@ians.in)
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