One airport vs. 20,000 flamingos

The annual migration of birds and beasts around the world has begun. Wildebeest herds in Kenya, spawning salmon on the Kamchatka peninsula, Gentoo penguins in the Antarctic. In Mumbai, we await the arrival of our own migratory guests: 15,000-20,000 lesser flamingos that each year head for the mudflats off Sewri, on the eastern shore front.
Their arrival, between November and June, is reassuring to Mumbaikars, who fear that the excessively polluted waters, or a proposed bridge, may one day put an end to this migration. Flying in from the Rann of Kutch and elsewhere, the sea turns pink for months.
The lesser flamingo is the smallest in the flamingo family but the largest in population. Found in Africa's Great Rift Valley they spread across to northwest India and are an endangered species.
Mangrove lined, the mudflats off Sewri form a perfect breeding ground for the birds with brackish water and mud mounds for them to lay their single chalky-white eggs. The shallow, sheltered bay has enough food for the many months the flamingos stay.
Sunjoy Monga, naturalist, writer and photographer, has been observing the flamingos since they arrived in the early 1990s. The grim reality, he says, is that "a lot of avifauna today is actually thriving because of the non-pristine; in garbage dumps, in polluted waters ... There's so much organic richness in these surrounds and birds, ever the incredible opportunists, are just making the most of conditions and circumstances provided by us."
26/11/10 Deepika Sorabjee/CNN GO

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Categories: Airports Nov 2010, New Nov 2010