• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

P. Devarajan

Melghat (Amravati) , Dec. 9

KISHOR Rithe, a forest guard, Dilip, a young Korku tribal, and myself were walking down a thin dust track in the Raipur range of the Melghat Tiger Reserve. It was about 7 in the morning and the sun came up in the eastern skies like a blossom-headed parakeet, spraying the first rays to take the bite off the morning air.

On the forest floor it could have been around 15 degrees. At around 7.30 a.m., Kishor spotted a nesting green pigeon atop a 40-50-ft high sajjad tree, quarrelling with a tree pie keen on its eggs. We watched the scene through our binoculars as the tree pie tugged at the pigeon's tail and, in turn, the pigeon spread its wings covering its nest. After about five minutes some sort of truce was called, with the tree pie resting on the branch of a nearby tree.

In the afternoon when we passed that way, the green pigeon, the State bird of Maharashtra, was at its nest resting in peace. There was no sign of the tree pie. Going by Dr Salim Ali, the nesting season of the green pigeon falls between March and June, and here was a green pigeon sitting on its eggs in the first week of December. In the past, green pigeons were found near towns but now, for ecological reasons, the bird might have shifted to safer places though one is never sure of Nature's ways. "This is something worth noting as it is rare," said Kishor Rithe.

The trekking and sighting was part of an elaborate bird survey of the Melghat Tiger Reserve, the first after some 30 years. The forest administration, Bombay Natural History Society and the Nature Conservation Society, Amravati, have joined hands to map 1,618 sq. km. of the reserve. By tracking birds, one could have some understanding of the fruiting trees, bamboo clumps, water holes, ridges, meadows, shrubs and salt licks.

The reserve is split into divisions with nine ranges (some 140 beats) and the survey covered eight ranges. The two methods adopted were Line Transect and Point Sampling. Under the first, a small party walks down a regular beat of a forest guard, roughly corresponding to a line, and marks down in a given form the birds seen, the trees in the area and other details. At the end of the beat, the party turns back to walk the same track. At this stage, the point sampling method takes over, with the party resting for about 15 minutes at any important spot to watch and note in detail the bird activity. The process is repeated in the evening.

At Melghat, one was up at 5 in the morning and on the forest floor by 6.30 a.m., with the long walk starting after a cup of tea. The afternoon work ends at around 12, when the party rests before repeating the same in the evening. With temperatures dipping to 15 degree, the birds are a twitter only when the sun's rays warm them up. Between 7 and 10 in the morning, there is brisk action as the birds fly around feeding. After about 10 in the morning, a quiet descends and the forest resembles an empty school. By 3.30 p.m. in the afternoon, action resumes and sighting gets interesting before the sun gives way to the moon.

Every little detail such as time, place details and the rest are noted in forms for analysis. The bird survey put in place some 300 guards and 40 volunteers gathered by Kishor Rithe with each party having a korku tribal, being an expert in local topography. With us, on the first day, was a 20-year-old Korku tribal, Dilip Lepo Mavaskar; Lepo is his father's name and Mavaskar is the identity of the gotra. Dilip has studied up to the fifth class and now helps the family in farming. He can identify a bird in the wink of an eye and one stood amazed at his forest instincts, which could tell a bird by the faintest of its calls. This writer was under stress to get the binoculars focused on a bird and by that time it happened, the bird was usually off. It is sad that the tribals were doing the bird census free when most of the time they were better than most of the forest guards, employed by the Forest Department of the State Government.

Kishor has been able to get the basics of a Korku, Marathi lexicon with equivalent English names, going. The Korku names have been checked with other Korkus and the birds confirmed after showing them the sketches in the Book of Indian Birds by Dr Salim Ali. That looked like an interesting offshoot as the Korku tribals mostly go by the name of the species.

At Malur in the Harisal range we came across one of the best forest guards, who seemed to be enjoying his job. He is M.S. Bharve and maintains a logbook to note down details of the birds and animals seen for simple pleasure. The Malur range is tough going, as one has to cross a rock-filled nulla and then a steep climb to get to the top of the range. In the morning, dewdrops were dripping from one large teak leaf to the next below, and at around 10 a.m., there came over the air the call of the langurs followed by two low growls of a tiger.

In May, Bharve had spotted a tiger and made detailed notes of the sighting, which he read out to us as we sat on the range looking for birds. It could have made many an expert proud. He also spotted sometime last month two tigresses and one can believe him as he sticks to facts. Unfortunately, the lower rungs of the Forest Department are ill-equipped even as the top rungs live in luxury, with fleets of cars and government files. They have no binoculars or any Marathi reference book to check out their sightings, the minimum for any birder. The experiment in noting down birds is an ambitious project and in some ranges the forest guards have done a good job. It could provide the template for repeat surveys in the summer and monsoon, and take two to three years before some conclusions can be arrived at by experts on the ecological status of the reserve.

A checklist styled, Birds of the Melghat, published by Project Tiger at Paratwada, lists more than 250 species belonging to 54 families and is based on a paper by V.B. Sawarkar, `Birds Survey of Melghat Tiger Reserve'. Melghat lies on a southern offshoot of the Satpuda range and is densely packed with rows of teak. On the fourth day of the survey, as we were driving out, Kishor halted his Gypsy to capture on film rolls a rufous pigeon, a migratory bird from the north. It was pecking at something on the road and did give us a view before an approaching lorry drove it off.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Nature comes alive, on a dusty trail

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line