Siberian birds back at their second home

Veerapuram (Anantapur): The Siberian migratory birds are back to their second summer home. As usual the villagers hosting the birds every year have welcomed the birds into their sanctuary.

The villagers are highly protective of their guests and will not permit any visitor to harm them or handle them. More than 3,000 painted storks, especially from Siberia in Russia, visit Veerapuram village in Chilamattur mandal, an age-old bird habitat, every year in March beginning for more than 8 decades.

The forest department had built water trenches and fish feed supply points for these migratory birds minimising their search for food. "These birds are our guests and so we do not want the birds to suffer searching for food," says Gali Naidu, a local citizen of Veerapuram village who had been watching the birds visit every year for over a decade.

There are different types of trees at Veerapuram village and hence enough nest building space is available for birds. Apart from the green vegetation, there are many small herbs, shrubs and wild grass all over the village.

Dry branches and twigs of plants scattered on the ground along with sticks from same trees and others can be used for nest building. Both male and female birds are involved in nest building and they take 5-7 days to build a nest, according to a SKU university Professors team which visited Veerapuram recently.

DFO K Chandrasekhar Reddy told The Hans India that security for birds has been firmed up at Veerapuram village where the birds sanctuary is located. A veterinary clinic has been opened at the village to treat sick birds if any.

Water trenches have been arranged for the birds to drink water. The birds until an year ago used to go in search of water to far off places, now with the government filling all village and age-old big tanks with Handri-Neeva water, the birds are having a field day at the village tanks quenching their thirst as well as catching fish at the village tanks including Hindupuram and Bukkapatnam tanks where fish is being raised by the fishermen cooperative societies.

The forest department is developing Veerapuram as a tourist resort. It is looking for a 4-acre government land for developing tourist facilities including setting up a museum. The DFO said that the nests of Siberian birds are being protected from monkeys which are coming to the bird sanctuary and disturbing the birds. Measures have been taken to keep at bay the monkeys in the vicinity of Veerapuram.

Painted storks are colonial tree nesting birds, nesting on different trees with often 70 to 100 nests per tree. The villagers are very friendly with birds and have made an unwritten law not to do any harm and at the same time protect the storks from other predators and from outsiders. Storks fly out from 6 am onwards and return to nests from 12 noon onwards in group of 10 to 22.

Fish, purchased from local market by the forest department were fed to six birds (adult and young ones/2-3 months old) for six days and the amount of fish consumed by each bird on an average was 1.2 kg.