1.35 lakh birds of 93 species visited Pong Dam

Rajiv Mahajan 

Nurpur, February 2

The three-day annual exercise of counting exotic migratory birds at the Pong Dam reservoir in the foothills of Kanga district concluded late on Sunday evening. 

The state Wildlife Department had organised the event. Experts and resource persons from different institutes and organisations such as the British Trust of Ornithology (BTO), Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)-UK, The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), The Himachal Bird Club, Birds of Himachal, Asian Water Fowl Census (AWC) and many wildlife enthusiasts, bird watchers, volunteers, along with officials and officers from the HP Forest Department, participated in this mega exercise. 

According to JS Walia, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Department-cum-Chief Wildlife Warden, the entire Pong Dam Lake Wildlife Sanctuary was divided into 22 segments with nearly 80 persons participating in the exercise and each section was thoroughly traversed, both on land and water, by a team of three to six members headed by an expert. 

He said experts’ teams were imparted special training and guidelines on the first day before starting the census. He said after completion of the exercise, it was concluded that 1,35,000 wetland birds of 93 different species visited Pong Dam Lake this year. 

Dominant species were bar-headed goose (71,800), northern pintail (11,800), common coots (9,500), common teals (8,100), common pochards (6,900), little cormorants (5,700), tufted ducks (2,800), ruddy shelduck (2,800) and great cormorants (2,400). 

Other rare species recorded were the greater white fronted geese (53), pied avocet (42), osprey (09), sarus crane (05), black bellied tern (05), common shelduck (02), buff bellied pipit (02), water pipit (02) and little gull (01), uncommon winter visitors in other Indian wetlands. 

He said other noticeable species spotted during the birds census exercise were great crested grebe, greylag goose, red crested pochard, ferruginous pochard and common merganser.

“The total number of wetland birds, as well as wetland bird species, have shown an increase from last year, when the total count was recorded as 1,25,500 of 88 different species. Most of these birds migrate from their breeding places in the Trans-Himalaya region in Tibet, Central Asia, Russia and Siberia,” he said. 

“Over the last few years Pong Dam Lake, declared a Ramsar wetland site, has become an ideal destination for a winter sojourn for many species of migratory birds,” he said.