Although the mercury here in Delhi has started to climb, signaling migratory birds to return to their colder homes, a group of greater flamingos decided otherwise - much to the bewilderment of avian experts.
About 106 of these birds arrived in the wetlands along the Najafgarh drain earlier this month, bucking the trend of the numbers of the winged-visitors gradually dropping over the last few years. Bird-watchers now feel that the phenomenon should be researched.
In the 1990s over 500 greater flamingos were counted at the Ohkla Bird Sanctuary. As per the Asian Waterbird Census, only seven birds visited the Okhla Bird Sanctuary in 2009, while in 2010, 20 were spotted. In 2011, they gave Delhi a miss altogether.
Seven greater flamingos were spotted at the Okhla sanctuary in the monsoon of 2012. In the winter of 2012, a total of 81 birds were recorded, the highest number ever recorded after 2008 when 93 birds were counted in Delhi.
From a small flock of nine Greater Flamingos that arrived in the first week of December 2012 at Okhla, in the sanctuary and gradually their number increased up to 126 including chicks, till 17 March, 2013.
The greater flamingo has a rosy-white appearance, with long legs and a pink tail. The bird is a resident of South Asia and is found on the tidal mudflats and lagoons along the eastern and the western coastline of India -- the estuaries in the Rann of Kutch, coastal areas of Maharashtra and Chilika lake in Odisha. The Greater Flamingo migrates to the inlands of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in the winter months.
The visit in the month of March has also surprised ornithologists. “Neither is there a cyclone at the coast, nor are there reports of drastically changing ecosystems. This is for the first time that the birds have come at this time of the year,” said TK Roy, ornithologists and conservationist. The ornithologists feel that data from across South East Asia need to be complied for atleast the next two years to understand the changing trend.