Tirunelveli :
The third leg of bird monitoring undertaken by the Tirunelveli forest circle spotted a good number of greater flamingos in the water bodies. Interestingly, some of them were spotted for the first time at the Sundarapandiayapuram tank near Tenkasi.
Tirunelveli forest circle consisting Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts has undertaken six months’ aquatic bird monitoring in the water bodies. The third leg of bird monitoring took place on Saturday. According to forest officials, the monitoring was conducted in about 20 tanks across the three districts. Different species of birds, ranging from 10 to 40, were noted in each tank with numbers ranging from few hundreds to as high as 15,000. Important water birds noted were spot-billed pelicans, bar-headed geese, little grebe, Indian spot-billed duck, comb duck, Asian open-bill stork, painted stork, pheasant-tailed jacana, terns apart from egrets, herons, variety of ibis, cormorants and moorhens, forest officials said.
District forest officer C H Padma said a group of greater flamingos was noticed first time in Sunderpandiyapuram tank near Tenkasi. In many of the irrigational tanks, an increased water level is observed due to release of water from dams. “It is happy to note that local people were aware of these monitoring works going on around their villages. Local people were also involved in some of the tanks on Saturday,” she said.
Conservator of forests Tirunelveli, Rakesh Kumar Dogra also participated in the monitoring exercise in Kadambankulam and Tuthukuzham of Tuticorin district and spotted around 100 greater flamingos. Commenting on the greater flamingos spotted in Tenkasi region, he opined that they could have migrated from nearby tanks. “We have learnt from the local people that flamingos do visit different tanks but not regularly,” he said. Though the flamingos normally prefer tanks nearby seashore areas, they could have visited this Sunderapandiapuram tank in the interior area for food, said M Mathivanan, coordinator of Agasthiamalai based Conservation Centre of ATREE.
The bird-monitoring exercise is yielding positive results and helping in the conservation of the tanks and the winged visitors, Dogra said. “The monthly presence of the department around the water bodies improves conservation. Officials were also instructed to specifically look for any mortality of birds or abnormal behaviour. This activity has definitely improved the protection status of winter visitors to these bird habitats,” he said.
The next monitoring is on February 23.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / TNN / January 28th, 2014