Bird watchers get a treat

Hyderabad: The Telangana Forest Development Corporation (TGFDC) organised a bird walk (bird watching) programme on Sunday at the botanical garden in the city, wherein 68 bird watchers and bird lovers from different places in Hyderabad participated.

FRO Srinivas and ecotourism project manager Suman received the participants and explained to them about the botanical garden. The bird watchers were divided into two groups and provided four bird experts (Uday Neethipudi, Aparanjani, Harigopala Chari, and Akhil) and given a bird's pocket guide published by the TSFDC.

Later, the assistant director of ecotourism, Tanuja, started the programme by waving the flag. The bird watchers identified the birds they saw through the pocket guide, and experts explained to the visitors how to do bird watching, how to identify them, the kind of birds, and the sounds they make. In the bird walk, they saw 22 types of birds, including blue jay (pala pitta), redwented bulbul (pikila pitta), ashy prinia (lottakannu pitta), black drongo (nalla yotrinta), green bee-eater (chinna pasarika), purple sunbird (uda tene pitta), black winged kite (adavi ramadasu), peafowl (moga nemali), peahens (ada nemali), brown shrike, purple bee, and others.

After the bird walk, they were taken to Telangana Forest Development Corporation and Botanical Garden in golf carts to the newly created 75 theme parks. All the participants expressed satisfaction with the overall experience.

TGFDC executive director of ecotourism, Ranjit Naik, said that henceforth, bird walks were going to be organised once every two months in various parks and forests; greater care will be taken for bird habitats, and nature camps will also be organised every week from now on.