ECOWATCH
From wasteland to waterbody
RANJIT LAL
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From zero to over 5000 ducks in four years, the Yamuna Biodiversity Park is testimony to what can be achieved if there is a will.
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Photo: Ranjit Lal
Welcome back: Red crested pochards swim about regally.
WAY back in the early 1980s, the "duck pond" in the Delhi zoo, (more officiously known as the National Zoological Park) used to be houseful with wintering northern pintails, shovellers, common teal and even brahminy duck (though probably these were pinioned birds), as well as resident spot-billed ducks. You could hardly see the water for the birds and a happy, contented murmur would rise from the water, as the birds sunned themselves.
Come feeding time, and a wholesome scrimmage would begin as the birds flocked to the corners where lunch was being served. It was a great place to get up close and familiar with these common ducks. They knew they were safe, even from the unruly hordes that visited the zoo and let you watch them from extremely close by — much closer than, say, in "celebratory" (alas no longer) locales like Bharatpur or Sultanpur. Every year, around Republic Day, I would traipse off there to try and photograph the ducks in flight, as they rose from the water when the Air Force rehearsed their flypasts overhead.
These days, you can virtually count the number of ducks on that pond on your fingers; it is a sad and desolate place. The pintails float desultorily around, kept company by a handful of shovellers, and if you're lucky you can catch a glimpse of a furtive teal hiding away along the fringes. Only the resident spot-bills seem smug and satisfied. It's said that the declining quality of water in the ponds was the cause of the decline in visiting duck numbers but whatever the reason, or excuse, we must remember this is no less than the National Zoological Park, with all the Capital's weight and clout behind it and not some two-bit local zoo. If there was a problem, whatever it was, it ought to have been tackled and solved long ago. And it can be done, if you just put your mind to it.
Strange rumours
A few years back I began hearing strange unbelievable rumours. There was a place quite near my house, it was said where you could actually see red-crested pochards, which some birders would rate as the glamour princes (alas, the princesses are pretty dowdy) of the duck world, as far as we were concerned.
This I had to check out, and so made my acquaintance with the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, a "joint collaboration project" of the Delhi Development Authority and the Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, University of Delhi. Their mission is "to serve as a repository and heritage of biodiversity of Yamuna river basin with ecological, cultural and educational benefits to the urban society and having conservation values".
Among their numerous objectives, one was "to develop a mosaic of wetlands that serves as bird sanctuaries and preserves aquatic genetic resources". To this end, out of barren wasteland, they created a rain-fed water body of seven or eight acres in extent, which they seeded with "duck food". The duck food plants took root and, hey presto, soon word got around in the duck world that the dining was good and the surroundings congenial. High-fringing grasses were planted around the water-body, to give the avian visitors privacy.
My first — and subsequent — visits were eye-openers. Even before you step out of the trees, the soft comforting murmur of ducks greets you. There before you, the blue waters are crowded, with divers and dabblers alike.
Crowded waters
Strait-laced tufted pochards with gimlet golden eyes float in rafts, kept company by gunmetal and russet common pochards. The gadwalls have arrived in shoals, gentlemen in steel grey gallantly escorting the ladies, and every so often getting into unseemly brawls with one another. Pintails, always debonair, sit tall in the water, wagging their tails in approval, as the beady-eyed shovellers float low and warily; always suspicious but then undermining their sullenness by upending hilariously, orange flippers flapping, tails wagging.
And, yes of course, there are red-crested pochards with their henna-punk hairstyles, lurid crimson bills, black bandhgallas and tails, and brown and white bodies looking every inch the princelings they were. They swim about regally, occasionally helping themselves to the fare that had been provided, escorting their ladies along. They say that over 5,000 visiting ducks winter here, and there are other water birds too.
Early in the season, a flock of delightful lesser whistling ducks stopped over, and the resident spot-billed ducks have nested here. The trees on the islands in the water are chock-block with large and little cormorants, croaking hoarsely at newcomers trying to grab a parking place. Purple swamp hens stomp about the reedy edges, Indian moorhens weave industriously in and out of the reeds, common coot patter splashily across, alarmed by a marsh harrier on an inspection tour and, of course, kingfishers crackle like electric short circuits from lookout perches.
In 2004, over 150 species had been counted, a figure that has surely risen since. All this starting from practically zilch — from what was once an arid alkaline wasteland.
Problems
There have been problems. In the villages just across the boundary wall, firecrackers are set off during the wedding season, which coincides with the migratory season. This sends the ducks up and away. On more than one morning, I have been sadly informed that the duck numbers are down because of wedding festivities in the village the previous evening.
But some of the ducks, at least, appear to be getting used to even this, and don't flick a feather as firecrackers pop in the distance. A couple of hides have been set up too, where you can spend a wonderful hour or two, literally eyeballing shovellers and their ilk, as they float close by.
This water body is just one part of a larger, more ambitious game plan as outlined in the list of objectives of the park. But that they've gone from wasteland to water-body and zero to over 5000 ducks in four years is testimony to what can be achieved if you put your mind to it.
Delhi zoo, do you copy?
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