BANGALORE: Sunday was the 110th birth anniversary of India's "bird man" Salim Ali, and dedicated bird-watchers Harish Bhat and P. Manjunath spent the afternoon, as they have been doing every November 12 for the past 10 years, watching birds.

Three hours at the Hesarghatta lake, once the feeder lake for Bangalore's water supply, and the delighted duo noted the early arrival of at least 45 species of migratory birds that come from as far as Russia and Afghanistan.

"We spotted 45 bird species in just an hour, and this was beyond out expectations," said Mr. Manjunath, who has seen the water deplete every year in this and most other lakes over the past decade and more. He also rues the declining interest in the legendary Salim Ali himself, saying, "now bird-watchers prefer to follow European or American icons and forget our own Salim Ali, and others who came after him."

The sighting of six scavenger vultures, a threatened species today, was the highlight for both of them. As Mr. Bhat said, "vultures have become extremely threatened, since the 1990s, their numbers dwindling by 95 per cent."

Experts were puzzled by this decline, and dead birds were found to have extensive visceral gout, a condition that can lead to renal failure in mammals. This was finally traced to diclofenac; the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug farmers were feeding livestock.

"The awesome sight of the vultures was both uplifting and saddening," said Mr. Bhat. It demonstrated the resilience of nature and its vulnerability to man's greed.

Apart from the vultures, they spotted small groups of Northern Pintail, Gargani, Common Pochard, Shoveller, Marsh Harrier, Rosy Pastor (which comes from Afghanistan). The birds would soon start arriving in large groups, sometimes thousands of them, Mr. Bhat said.

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