Chilika Lake: Haven for myriad birds

Neepa Sharma 

If you are a birdwatcher, the Mangalajodi Bird Sanctuary on Chilika Lake in Odisha is the place for you. This beautiful and vast wetland, around 60 km from Bhubaneswar, turns into a home for around 3-4 lakh migratory birds from Central Asia and Siberia from November to March.

At the sanctuary, boats are available to show the birdwatchers around. There are guides too — many of whom were poachers before government offered them this opportunity to earn their livelihood. The guides point out exotic varieties of birds to you. On the boat, one is told to maintain silence so that the birds are not disturbed. For those new to bird watching, the whole experience of seeing so many birds coexisting in this amazing swampland is absolutely amazing. There are birds everywhere — swimming, flying, lazing around and trying to catch fish. There’s a variety of sounds too — singing, chirping and cawing — but no cacophony. Some birds move in groups, some alone, and some just keep flying and swooping in to catch a meal. The birds flying close to the surface of water and swooping in to catch fish is an interesting sight. 

Among the many birds in the lake are rare golden ducks, a variety of herons and some predatory and unusual birds. 

The purple heron looks scary, its long and bent neck looks like a snake. Most of them are seen standing still, ever ready to pick their meal from the water. 

One has to carefully navigate around hundreds of water hyacinths that look beautiful but are actually choking up the wetlands. The guide tells us these are cleaned up quite often but grow back pretty fast. It’s surprising to see scores of birds resting on the banks. They seem completely unperturbed, probably used to seeing tourists in their terrain. 

At the end of our two-hour ride, we were in awe of what we had experienced. The vastness of the sanctuary, beauty of the birds, the coexistence of the visiting and resident birds, both the predatory and the harmless, were simply breathtaking.