Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune press service

Chandigarh, November 21

With a drop in temperature, winged guests from Siberia began to arrive at Lake Sukhna.

Debendra Dalai, chief forest curator and chief wildlife warden, UT, said common scaup, common coot, mallard and pintail, all common species, have arrived at the lake for their winter stay. . He said the arrival of migratory birds would increase with a further drop in mercury starting next month and that they would stay here until March of next year.

Meanwhile, bird watchers have started to hope to spot bar-headed geese, a migratory bird that reaches Lake Sukhna from Siberia after flying over the mighty Himalayas during the winter season.

As birds prefer shallow water for food and the water in the lake is quite high, the department will create floating islands for migrating lake birds.

Dalai said five of these floating islands were created for winged guests to bask, rest and sleep during their winter trip to the lake last year.

As an experiment, a bamboo raft was pushed into the lake, he said, adding that since a large number of birds were using this raft, they had decided to increase the number of such rafts to five. last year. Because of the depth of the water, the birds needed mud flats to rest and in the absence of such a facility, they decided to create man-made islands for the birds, he said.

However, during the annual Salim Ali Bird Species Census and Waterfowl Census conducted recently by the Chandigarh Bird Club, 73 species of waterfowl and other birds were spotted in Sukhna Lake and adjacent areas. A total of 335 waterfowl were spotted during the survey carried out by club members in Sukhna and Dhanas lakes.

Six teams comprising 34 members and volunteers conducted the exercise on Sukhna and Dhanas Lakes in Chandigarh and three teams traveled to Ghaggar beyond Chhatbir, Siswan Dam and Mirzapur Dam in the Chandigarh interstate region ( ISCR). Bird counts for six locations falling in adjacent areas were also carried out and a total of 2,040 waterfowl with 99 species were observed in the ICRH.

Surprisingly, the number of species as well as the total number of birds seen this year were lower than last year, said a member of the club, adding that “we can say that it was the least since the first one. census that took place in 2017.. “The club conducts the survey each year in memory of Dr. Salim Ali, ornithologist, on the Sunday closest to November 12, the anniversary of the birth of Dr. Ali.

The most common species that arrive in the lake are the shelduck, black-winged stilt, Eurasian coot, great cormorant, Indian spotted duck, pintail, white-breasted moorhen. , White-browed Wagtail, American Kingfisher, Citrine Wagtail, and Common Wagtail. Kingfisher.