Many bird varieties go missing from Sarobar KOLKATA: Around 9am on Wednesday, a morning walker at Rabindra Sarobar stumbled upon a dead Indian pond heron on the Lake walkway — an apparent casualty of the nightlong cacophony of the Chhath puja revelry.Ornithologists fear more birds may have died as a result of the revelry with carcasses either lying behind the bushes, away from public view, or already consumed by scavengers. However, what is certain is that the noisy crackers and music blaring from boom boxes had an impact on the Lake birds, both resident and migratory.Birders, who visit the Lake daily, say nearly half the migratory bird population fled after the traumatic experience on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some birds like the Cinerous tit and Indian darter that were spotted in smaller numbers have disappeared. Ornithologists say these birds are unlikely to return this winter.This year had been an unusually good one with the 75-odd birders at Rabindra Sarobar recording 100 varieties of birds.According to birder Sudip Ghosh, half the population of Greater cormorants and Lesser Indian cormorants that had arrived in large numbers at Rabindra Sarobar, flew away on Tuesday night or in the wee hours of Wednesday, after a disturbing evening when they were repeatedly startled by the sound of crackers.“Usually, we see all the cormorants perched on the trees. But on Tuesday evening, every time a cracker went off, the birds flew off and circled the Lake before returning to their perch. There was also a lot of chatter among the birds, as though communicating the threat to each other. On Wednesday morning and evening, the numbers were conspicuously down,” said Ghosh.Dhrubajyoti Chakraborty, who also goes birding at the Lake everyday and calls himself a naturalist, said Thrushes of all kinds — orange-headed, tickles, scaly — that can usually be seen pecking away at insects on the grounds of Rabindra Sarbar grounds were missing. The invasion of the grounds by over 50,000 people and bursting of crackers and blaring of loud music has scared them away. Since they are resident birds, they will probably return. But the migratory birds may have been shooed away for good this year,” Chakraborty said.Since the Chhath evening, a pair of Indian darter and Cinerous tit are nowhere to be seen at the Lake. What Chakraborty considers a telling impact on the bird population is the disappearance of the rose-ringed parakeet.“They (parakeet) will probably return. But the fact that a resident bird like this that is used to the high ambient noise in cities, and hence, more resilient to such disturbances got rattled and took flight is significant,” he reasoned. Some birds like Tiaga flycatcher, Verditer flycatcher and Racket tail drongo have taken refuge in the Lion’s Safari park that was out of access to Chhath devotees and revellers.Ornithologist Sumit Sen fears there could be many more fatalities like that of the Indian pond heron, a fairly common bird near waterbodies in the sub-continent. There are known instances of birds dropping dead due to a heart attack when there is a sudden explosion. In Bangladesh, thunder claps have resulted in bird deaths.But the bigger worry is the displaced falling prey to predators. “Birds choose their roosting place very carefully because when they rest at night, they are helpless. When so many people invade their habitat and create a racket by bursting crackers, the birds flee and therefore expose themselves to predators. Near my house, I have seen birds fall prey to civet cat. Rabindra Sarobar should be the last place where one can have noise of the scale that Chhath Puja generates given what it means to birds,” said Sen.

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