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Young World
Watching winged wonders
K. SUBRAMANIAN
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A visit to the Point Calimere and the blackbuck sanctuaries on the Nagapattinam coast left the students thinking.
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A walk in the sun: At Point Calimere Bird Sanctuary.
It was the most exciting trip of our life to know about the bio-diversity of nature, the relationship between habitats and migration of birds from the Arctic regions and far off places. The experience left a lasting impression on our minds about the importance of protecting theenvironment. This was how the over 70 students of Samrakshana Club and teachers of Sivananda Balalaya School, Tiruchi, felt on their return from a recent visit to Point Calimere bird sanctuary and the blackbuck sanctuary on the tsunami-hit Nagapattinam coast and the oil rig at Adiyakkamangalam, 20 km from Nagapattinam.
The study tour was arranged by the Samrakshana Club of Tiruchi. The students were happy to see the brilliant paddy and sugarcane, the groundnut crops and cashew, the banana and casuarina plantations and mangrove and shrub forests of the blackbuck sanctuary en-route from Tiruchi to Point Calimere, each of the crops in their respective all agro-climatic zone.
At the oil drill site, the students were told that oil had been struck at a depth of 2,100 metres and it was of excellent quality. The destruction caused by the tsunami waves was inspiring as also the construction of long over-bridges, and thousands of houses for tsunami victims in the coastal belt.
The students walked for over six km inside the 30 square-mile black buck sanctuary. The Forest Department had recently built about a 2,000-metre-long bund to prevent sea water intrusion into the sanctuary.
The visit was on the eve of the bird counting at Point Calimere conducted by the Bombay Natural History Society.
The bird counting was coordinated by M. Balachandran, ornithologist, and S. Thirunavakkarasu, Wildlife Warden of Nagapattinam.
More than 60 persons including forest officials and students of A.V.C College, Mayiladuthurai, Sri AVVM Pushpam College, Poondi, Palani Hill Conservation Society participated in the bird counting from dawn to dusk.
Count on record
It was revealed that over 10,000 Gull billed terns, 4,000 black-winged stilts, 7,000 terns, 28,000 pintail ducks, 4,000 plovers, 300 painted storks and a few flamingos were spotted during the counting of birds. However, there were over 4,000 flamingos and 3,000 painted storks in November, said Balachandran.
V. Ganapathy, vice-president of Samrakshana Welfare Club, Tiruchi, told the students about the migratory habits of the birds from distant Siberia and Arctic regions to Point Calimere bird sanctuary at their winter habitat and they return to their homes when the days start getting warmer here in Point Calimere indicating that the winter in the Arctic region was also approaching an end.
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