Anand Pendharkar, an ecologist, is taking a group of 20-odd girls from a shelter home on a bird-watching trail at the Maharashtra Nature Park in Dharavi. The girls, unmindful of the searing heat, are excited to catch a glimpse of the birds in the park, and hear their sounds.
“Guess which cuckoo sings?” he asks them. “The male or the female?”
“Female,” the girls say, in chorus.
“Female cuckoos have an unattractive voice,” Mr. Pendharkar says, “and it’s the male that sings. So, when you say Lata Mangeshkar sings like a koyal [cuckoo in Hindi], it might come off as rather offensive to her singing prowess.” He gets his laugh, and they walk on, and then he throws some more trivia at them.
“Do you know the Bird of Mumbai?” he asks. Most of the girls’ faces go blank. “It’s a small green bird called the coppersmith barbet. At any place in Mumbai, if you stand and observe, you’ll hear a metallic sound, akin to copper being beaten.” He makes a tuk-tuk-tuk sound, remarkably close to the bird’s call. The Coppersmith Barbet, he tells them, was voted as the Bird of Mumbai in 2011 after a week-long online contest. It eats mainly fruit, but despite the depleting tree cover in the city, it has shown the spirit of survival, like any Mumbaikar.
Mr. Pendarkar, an ecologist, is among a handful of bird experts in the city, and he has been observing the changing patterns of bird life over the decades. “India has over 1,200 bird species, and Mumbai has over 325 of them,” he says. Mumbai owes this rich biodiversity to its long coastline and numerous hillocks. “There are also ‘important bird areas’ designated by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), including Sewri-Mahul and the Thane creek, and the Karnala bird sanctuary,” he says. Other hotspots are Powai Lake and the IIT Bombay campus, the Godrej mangroves at Vikhroli and TS Chanakya Seawoods in Nerul, Navi Mumbai.
Changing landscapes
Bird species native to the Western Ghats or other parts of the subcontinent are a common sight in the city, like the Vigor’s Sunbird, Orange Minivet, Red Spurfowl, Malabar Whistling Thrush and Malabar Trogon. Some rare sightings of birds like the Long-billed Dowitcher, Great Hornbill, Rufous-bellied Eagle, and Jungle Bush have also been reported. However, endemic species are on a decline due to rapid changes in the urban landscape.
“People make new lawns and artificial landscapes,” Mr. Phendarkar says. “Many indigenous species of trees, which provide food to these birds, are being replaced by exotic varieties.”
Avinash Kubal, Deputy Director at the Maharashtra Nature Park, explains: “Urbanisation essentially means less space for seeds of indigenous trees.” This means depleting cover of these original trees. Eliminating natural propagation to favour ‘choice’ species: tree that are not indigenous but chosen for specific characteristics such as rapid growth, low water requirement, minimum maintenance and lower chances of being eaten by street animals.
In the last tree census in 2012-13, while the coconut topped the list in numbers, it was followed by the peltophorum (a tree with crinkled yellow flowers) and the gulmohar, neither indigenous to Mumbai. These trees are planted because they require little water and or special effort. But, Mr. Kubal says, “They provide absolutely no food to birds; neither are they used for nectar or for nesting.”
The resident birds, which lose their ecosystems, perish. Their food habits cannot change, or as Mr. Pendharkar, who has a fondness for simile, says, “Birds cannot eat Indian food one day, and then switch to Italian or Mexican another day.” And they cannot shift habitats easily. “If they live near Andheri West, they won’t even move to the east. This causes some species of birds to become locally extinct.”
Flying away
Birds like the woodpecker, whose survival depends on indigenous trees, have deserted the city. Grey hornbills and ashy woodswallows, once quite common, are now a rarity. Marsh harriers and other birds which favour reed beds, seen in large numbers even four or five years ago, are now much less numerous.
Bird habitats hitherto neglected by urbanisation — grasslands and scrub for instance — are being gobbled up. Nearly 75% of the city’s land has been ‘developed,’ resulting in birds like larks and tepids finding it difficult to survive. Rapid construction in Bhandup, Mulund, and near Manori beach are also taking a toll on the bird population.
The rest of the metropolitan region isn’t doing better. Sanjay Monga, naturalist and author, says, “There’s been a destruction of the extensive wetlands of the Uran and southern Navi Mumbai region, especially for the disastrous Navi Mumbai SEZ, [which] robbed away one of the most extensive slivers of wetlands in this part of the country.”
Why they’re dwindling
Big infrastructure projects
Many believe that conservation has taken a backseat to development. The construction of roads and metros — for example the metro yard in the Aarey land, the Colaba metro project, and the proposed tunnel through Sanjay Gandhi National Park — threaten entire ecosystems. And when green cover is lost, we lose the birds too.
In the metro yard project in Aarey colony, an expert committee conducted a feasibility study. The report (now a classified document) suggested a list of alternatives for the yard, and the Aarey area appeared only as the fifth option. The yard project threatens to uproot around 2,300 trees, and environmentalists have been protesting vigorously. “The environmentalists made the time and effort to come up with a number of sustainable alternatives, but the government is not taking them up,” says Mr. Pendharkar.
Hunting
Not a major threat in most of the region, it is, however, prevalent in Uran, Sewri and Charkop. Captured or killed birds, weighing as little as 200–300 gm., and quite often rare and exotic species, are sometimes sold at Crawford Market for meat. Some people also use bird beaks as talismans. And owls and eagles are sometimes captured for use in black magic rituals.
Garbage
A number of birds have reportedly died because of consuming garbage. Post mortem reports have revealed the presence of metals, pesticides, surfactants and other toxic materials in their body. The amount of these toxic substances in their bodies increases over time, a process known as ‘bio-accumulation’. For instance birds may consume worms living in sewage; one or two may not matter, but when it becomes a daily diet, the toxins build up and the bird dies. Or it may have other effects, like the shells of some species eggs not hardening. With migratory birds, there is an additional risk: they may carry diseases to their other homes.
Pesticides
White-backed and long-billed vultures once used to be a part of the city’s culture. At the Tower of Silence, the Parsi crematorium, vultures fed on the community’s corpses. But in the 1990s, in what came to be known as the Indian vulture crisis, large numbers of vultures began mysteriously dying across the country, The cause of death was narrowed down to the presence of Diclofenac, a once-common anti-inflammatory drug administered to cattle, which the carrion eaters consumed. The drug, banned in 2006, took Indian vulture species to near-extinction.
Tourists
Not well known, but a threat all the same, are handheld digital devices. Used to play sounds that attract birds, when used by large number of tourists they put the birds’ life at risk.
The way ahead
Many organisations are trying to help document birds in the city. It is not easy: birds, as birds do, fly, earthbound birdwatchers can’t. Still, bird lovers gathering regularly have made extensive documentation efforts at, for instance, the Sewri mudflats, the National Park, and the Maharashtra Nature Park.
“We usually organise nature trails in areas in and around Mumbai especially for birdwatching,” says Bilwada Kale, Public Relations Officer, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). “The organisation has documented several bird sites extensively. It is difficult to create data for the entire city since birds choose to live in ecosystems suitable for them.” The Mumbai Birdwatchers Club also organises bird trails around the city.
The Cornell University-instituted E-bird, on its part, documents birds in ‘unvisited’ areas. A four-day marathon, called the Great Backyard Bird Count, encourages all kinds of people, not just expert birdwatchers, to participate by looking for birds in their backyards and uploading photos. Last year, India stood third in the world with over 12,000 lists, only behind the US and Canada. Overall, as of January, India has over 5 million recordings and 7,000 bird watchers registered with E-bird. The organisation also puts up monthly challenges for birders.
A group of Mumbai bird enthusiasts have also come up with an app to document sightings in the city: Vasai birds. Birders ‘pin’ locations of birds they have spotted onto the app’s map. A Facebook page, Indian Birds, which has close to a lakh members, also helps document birds.
Overall, Mumbai, fares better than most Indian cities. “Mumbai and its surrounds have more Protected Areas (national parks, wildlife sanctuaries) than perhaps any city of similar dimensions,” Mr. Monga says. “Other projects and efforts continue, be it in terms of mangrove protection, some biodiversity surveys and educational and awareness programmes.”
Still, environmentalists want people to be more aware about bird species and their patterns, to help with conservation efforts. “You cannot save something that you don’t know exists,” says Mr. Pendharkar. He wants the government to step up its conservation efforts. “When Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, she was very interested in nature conservation and so, she ordered a tiger census. When the numbers were low, many tiger sanctuaries were started in India. Similar political will is needed for the conservation of birds.”
Birdspotting
Ranibaug
Indian grey hornbill
Red-vented Bulbul
Black-crowned night heron
Common tailorbird
Mahalaxmi Race Course
Ashy prinia
Blyth’s reed warbler
Paddyfield pipit
Western yellow wagtail
Plain prinia
Red-wattled lapwing
Ferry Wharf
Brown-headed gull
Black-headed gull
Pallas’s gull
Gull-billed tern
White-bellied sea eagle
Little tern
Lesser crested tern
Greater Crested Tern
Sewri Mudflats
Lesser flamingo
Greater flamingo
Lesser sand plover
Common sandpiper
Great egret
Western reef heron
Ruddy turnstone
Little stint
Curlew sandpiper
Dunlin
SGNP
Racket-tailed drongo
Pied starling
Red-whiskered bulbul
Purple-rumped sunbird
Heart-spotted woodpecker
White-spotted fantail
Orange-headed thrush
TS Chanakya
(Navi Mumbai)
Eurasian spoonbill
Black-winged stilt
Northern shoveller
Northern pintail
White-eared bulbul
Lesser flamingo
Greater flamingo
Caspian tern
Karnala Bird Sanctuary
Crimson-backed sunbird
Loten sunbird
Grey-fronted green-pigeon
Rufous woodpecker
Emerald dove
Black-naped monarch
Asian paradise flycatcher
Indian pygmy woodpecker
Indian pitta
Sulpher-bellied warbler
Malabar whistling thrush
White-rumped shama
Forest wagtail
