Birds have all but gone from a dry, unattended Bharatpur

It was a quick weekend to the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary the other week. It all began on a high note with me having won the bet that it would take not more than four hours from Delhi to reach the vintage haveli we had booked in Bharatpur for our short stay.

Of course, the excellent condition of the road till Mathura ensured I won the bet (the loser had to pay for the petrol). The eight-lane highway ensured smooth flow of traffic at an average speed of 80 km/hr. Indeed, it surprised me that Mayawati has done a good job of maintaining at least the arterial roads in her State — a fact that became even more stark once we turned from the Mathura highway into the wobbly, potholed road to Bharatpur under the Rajasthan Government.

It was frustrating that it took us just 2.5 hours to reach the diversion point and an entire one plus hour to traverse just 34 km to Bharatpur from the Mathura turn! Rajasthan is a tourist intensive State so the bad condition of this road was puzzling, more so considering that Bharatpur is a hot winter destination for dedicated foreign bird watchers.

Having relaxed at a frozen-in-time haveli some distance from the national park, we headed for the mandatory bird watching at the park. It was my first time at a national park to watch birds. Generally, it is all about tigers and the big game chase that I associate national parks with. So, in that context it was a different experience.

However, it was the tiger story that started my trudge into the forest on a paddle rickshaw. The rickshaw-pullers, who incidentally, are the best tourist guides for this park, told me a tiger had strayed into the Bharatpur bird sanctuary recently. I was instantly interested. Apparently, the big cat had walked all the way from Ranthambore through connected thickets and was discovered in Bharatpur through pug marks.

No, no one had seen this tiger but the story goes that the forest officials did track him down and steered him back to its original habitat. You see, that’s the story with tigers generally. Everyone talks about them but no one around you has seen it. It’s almost always the pug marks that make up for the elusive animal itself.

Now that the tiger was reportedly back, I settled down to, well, bird watching. Spotting birds at a distance straining the naked eye was not my cup of tea though the python slithering out of its deep hole next to my feet and then curling onto a nearby branch to sun itself was a novel experience.

The same went for the huge monitor lizard trying to find its place under the sun on a chilly wintry morning. Other than that, the colour came in from under the groovy blue wings of the flying kingfisher which reminded me more of a cussed airline baron than anything else. Yes, the woodpecker did add some colour to the proceedings but that was it.

Other than the parakeets and the mainas there was little else that caught my attention though the royal at the haveli did promise that there were 57 varieties of ducks that had descended from places like Siberia and Holland. However, most of these ducks were grey in colour and merged with the general vegetation to even create a flurry.

On the whole, and even though I am no avid bird watcher, it was sad to know that migratory birds have long dropped this sanctuary from their annual itinerary, mostly because the park has dried up.

The last jodi of Siberian cranes was spotted way back in 2008. That’s the last they came here. In the 1990s they came in huge flocks, going up to 37. But the marshlands are now gone and cracked earth is all that remains. There is no greenery either with savannah grass and thorn trees giving the colour mud-brown a whole new meaning.

The birds used to come here because of the 394 acres of undisturbed marshlands where they could spend time recuperating from harsh winter conditions back home. No longer so. In fact, the conditions here are so bad that UNESCO last year threatened to drop it off its prestigious list of hotshot bird sanctuaries of the world. It was only on an appeal for time that UNESCO relented but how the Government will give back the good condition to this park is a question that escapes answer.

As the marshlands and water bodies in this park dried up due to lack of rains, and in the absence of any initiative on the Government’s part, the birds even from places like Chennai and Germany started dwindling, as did the foreign tourists.

The project to bring in a pipeline to irrigate the park all the way from Chambal took 15 long years and it has just about reached the park now. It will take another couple of years to refill the dry water spots and an entirely unknown stretch of time to create marshlands.

The expert rickshaw-puller tells you how even this will not help. “The marshlands need natural water as that’s the only way to infest them with the organisms and insects needed as bird feed. Apparently, even though the pipeline water is irrigating the land, it is too sterile for these insects and frogs to breed in which means that the birds will still not be coming.

That’s the story of the great Indian apathy to environment. Fifteen years is a long time to get a project working and in these 15 years everything around a formerly buzzing Bharatpur has gone down.

The raja at the haveli tells you that foreigners have all but trickled out which means doom for the dollar business this park economy thrived on. Bird watchers are a dedicated lot. They come in groups and stay for months spotting, filming and tracking down birds.

The Indian tourist, on the other hand, is far less committed to this sport, much like its Government! The domestic traffic was here in full strength to celebrate New Year and Bharatpur recorded full occupancy after a long, long time. But that had nothing to do with the birds — or the lack of them — in the sanctuary. It was more about bonfire night-outs with song, dance and alcohol — just a weekend and it was all empty again.

Published in The Sunday Pioneer, 22 January, 2012