Birds of paradise

KOLKATA: At the Great Backyard Bird Count 2023 held between February 17 and 20 across 35 states and Union Territories in India earlier this year, West Bengal recorded 489 bird species, the highest in the country. Uttarakhand was next with 426 species, followed by Arunachal Pradesh with 407, Assam with 397 and Karnataka with 371 species.
During the even t, over 100 bird species were spotted in Kolkata.Bird watchers say 295 species of birds have been sighted in the city in the past 12 months. The figure would appear startling for those who thought Kolkata played host to only crows, sparrows, common myna, Indian koel, drongo and rose-ringed parakeet. But birders say there are even more birds that visit the city but have not yet been sighted.

While Bengal does host and attract a variety of birds due to its geographically diverse habitat that ranges from the Himalayas in the north to the Gangetic plains in the middle and the Bay of Bengal in the south, the reason behind the state’s and the city’s impressive tally, say ornithologists, is the large number of ears and eyes on the ground. “Had this count happened a decade-and-a-half ago, the figure would have been a lot lower, not because there were less birds but because there were fewer birders and bird-spotting was not as organised as it is now. I am certain there are more bird species in Assam but they don’t get recorded because birding activity is not as vibrant the re as it is here,” said ornithologist Sumit Sen. Birdwatching in Kolkata began in 1978 when Prakriti Sansad was formed by pioneers like Kushal Mukherjee and Kalyan Dey. While they h ad a band of followers, the limitations in bird watching aids and literature meant that it did not gain mass acceptance till over two decades later when access to good binoculars followed by digital cameras and finally the advent of social media led to a boom in bird photography.
“Suddenly, connectivity, visibility, sharing of information and appreciation of photographs zoomed. It acted as a bait to hook more people into the birding movement. The checklist is becoming larger at a rapid pace. On an average winter day, more than 100 species of birds can be spotted in Kolkata,” said Bird Watchers’ Society secretary Sujan Chatterjee.
It was around 2004 that communications professional Sudipto Roy got interested. “I saw a website by Sumit Sen on Kolkata’s birds and was astounded by the sheer variety of birds that were there in the city that I had no knowledge of. The interest that was sparked around two decades ago continues to fuel me,” said Roy. After the ban on photography at Rabindra Sarobar was lifted in 2011, infotech professional Sudip Ghosh and physician Sumit Sengupta took to birding , somewhat out of curiosity but primarily to check out digital cameras with zoom lenses that they had purchased. “We had bumped into each other. Sengupta was walking around Sarobar with a fancy camera and I was also pottering around as I live in an apartment on Southern Avenue. After a brief introduction, we decided to go around looking for birds. We spotted quite a few. Since then, we haven’t stopped looking around for more,” recounted Ghosh.
The duo is credited with turning Rabindra Sarobar into a birding hot spot. They have inspired several 100 youths to take up birding. After an initial clash of words with the management of Lions’ Safari Park at Sarobar in 2013, the two managed to convince them to also join the movement and contribute by just leaving a section unattended. Now, that thicket with wild overgrowth is perhaps the city’s most prized bird habitat. “Over the years, there have been over 130 species of birds at Rabindra Sarobar. Other than water birds like painted stork, cormorants and black crowned night heron, over 100 species can be spotted through the year at Safari Park alone,” said Sengupta.
The respiratory medicine consultant said bird-watching was not just a peaceful, non-competitive sport that allowed one to 9 meet and bond with people from diverse fields, it also had a great therapeutic value as it led to an improvement of physical and mental health. “Birding is a great stress buster a s it is an activity that takes place in the lap of nature,” he pointed out.
Over the years, increase in birding activities has also led to conservation of some urban bird habitats. “Whenever we go out in the field we not only click pictures but also keep an eye on whether the birds’ habitats are safe and secure. The moment we find any discrepancy, we report it to the authorities concerned. For example, the issue of stubble-burning leading to habitat destruction in Rajarhat has been highlighted several times by birder s like us. Similarly, we alerted the forest department a few years ago on protecting a wetland habitat at Gocharan near Joynagar that offers a good scope to sight yellow bittern, a species which was once common in urban wetlands but is now hard to find,” said photographer and an avid birder, Siddhartha Dey, who’s also a member of city-based birding community LensnWings. “Birding also results in awareness among locals. During field trips, we disseminate knowledge among locals about a species — like how a species like open-billed stork, which is common in Rajarhat, helps in agriculture,” added Dey.
The first step towards birding, according to experts, is to start learning about local birds. “Connect with local birding groups or clubs to meet experienced birdwatchers, participate in group outings and learn from their expertise,” added Sengupta.
A steep fee on cameras imposed by the state forest department at Central Park has come as a damper. Birder and businessman Navin Agarwal, who took to photography at Central Par k after his interest was piqued by the numerous bird calls during morning walk, hopes foresters will see reason sooner than later and allow birding activity to resume unhindered.