A good news for the bird livers in the State! The number of Baya weaver birds has increased in the State, revealed a recent count organized by the Wild Orissa along with the Odisha Chapter of Indian Bird Conservation Network (IBCN).
According to the count, 14,193 Baya weavers, 3,000 streaked weavers and 35 black-breasted weavers were sighted totaling their number to 17,228. During 2018, a total of 11676 weavers were counted. So there has been an increase of 5,552 weaver birds found this year.
While 560 persons from different walks of life participated for surveying and counting the weaver birds, 18 districts were covered such as Angul, Bhadrak, Boudh, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jagatsingpur, Jajpur, Kendrapada, Keonjhar, Khurda, Mayurbhanj, Nabarangur, Nayagarh, Phulbani, Puri, Sambalpur and Sundargarh.
The census showed as to how damaging cyclone Fani has been on the breeding habitats of weaver species. The district of Puri, Kendrapada, Jagatsingpur and some parts of Khurda, which experienced maximum onslaught of Fani, showed blanks in most parts, which in the past years had counted healthy figures of weavers.
On a few palm /coconut trees etc, which survived the storm, the weavers especially Baya weavers built their nests in big numbers.
This year 8,665 weaver bird nests were counted in comparison to 852 nests counted last year, which is also a spectacular jump. The loss of nesting sites with extensive damages to reeds, palm and coconut trees has led to fall in count of streaked weaver and black-breasted weaver. The black-breasted weavers have given a miss to the State this year.
Cutting of palm and date palm trees and toddy extraction from date palm trees, non availability of trees in urban and semi-urban areas like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambalpur are the reason why weaver birds’ number has been falling. The findings will be communicated to the Government for suitable action, said Wild Orissa secretary Monalisa Bhujabal.