Avian visitors have been making their annual tryst with Kashmir valley for centuries now
Avian guests from Eastern Europe, Siberia, China, Philippines and other areas have already started arriving in Kashmir this year at the turn of season.
To ward off the extreme cold of their summer homes, as many as 2,50,000 migratory birds including mallards, common teals, pintails, coots, and gadwalls have reached the Hokarsar Wetland, on the outskirts of Srinagar to spend the winter months in the valley.
Avian visitors have been making their annual tryst with Kashmir valley for centuries now, inform official sources. A wetland warden Imtiyaz Lone tells that they start receiving the first flights of the avian visitors in the first week of October. The batches keep flocking the wetland reserves till February until summer comes around, he mentions.
A bit about the avian visitors
“The migratory birds fly in highly disciplined patterns. The eldest of the flock leads the flock like an experienced pilot. It is always the elder bird which is assigned the leadership duties during the flight because of its familiarity with the route,” says official at Hokersar wetland, around 10 km from city centre in Srinagar.
Experts say that if the leader bird fails to lead due to reasons like falling sick or dying in the course of migration, there is always a chain of command and the second in line takes charge as the leader. Birds of different species fly in separate group.
Besides migratory birds, who spend the whole of the winter in Kashmir, passage birds too arrive to these places. A bird of passage is a migratory bird which arrives in the valley with the beginning of the winter and spend some time before moving down to the Indian plains, like the Sandhill crane and the cormorant. In the spring months, these birds of passage also spend some time in the valley before moving back to their summer homes.
‘Dearth of staff is known to government’
As the riot of colour and cackle brings life to valley, ‘understaffed’ Wildlife Protection Department (WPD) is yet again bracing up to stop poaching of migratory birds. According to officials, the WPD, which had a total staff strength of 169 in the year 1999, is now left with only 69 staff members. The decrease in the staff of the department is creating hurdles in controlling the killing of the migratory birds which happens to be the main issue of concern of the WPD.
The dearth of the staff, according to Imtiyaz Ahmad, Assistant Wildlife Warden, Central Division Srinagar, is known to government but unfortunately non-fulfilment of vacancies only helps poachers who go unabated in killing the birds which is prohibited by law. Imtiyaz, told that, even though they have already formulated anti-poaching squads to keep check and control the poaching but it is impossible to be at many places. Poaching is rampant in many areas including Horkesar where the birds lay their eggs.
