Diminishing grasslands and wetlands is costing the national capital yet another elegant species -- the Weaver Bird or Baya, showed a survey on Saturday.
The week-long survey, conducted throughout the country to count the number of Weaver Baya, did not find a single bird in Delhi and the areas around it.
What is more concerning is that over a period of one week, about six fragile empty nests were spotted in Delhi's Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, indicating the birds had migrated due to a loss in the habitat.
The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), an NGO involved in conservation and biodiversity research, conducted the bird monitoring programme.
The bird watcher spotted only 880 individual Baya throughout the country between June 4 and 10. Worried experts are calling for immediate conservational efforts for the grasslands, to preserve their habitat.
The yellow coloured sparrow sized Baya or Indian Weaver makes the distinct hanging nests using different types of grasses. However, due to loss in vegetation and grasslands in urban area, especially Delhi, the birds are moving away.
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According to officials, while not a single bird was spotted in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR), a total of 56 birds were spotted during a two-hour walk at the Bhindawas Bird Sanctuary in Haryana's Jhajjar district, about 52 km from here.
"About five years back there were many Baya in Delhi but these birds need grasslands to construct the nests. Due to loss in habitat, we don't have grasslands around Delhi anymore, so the birds moved away," Mugdha Singh, Education officer at Conservation Education Centre (CEC) Delhi - a sanctuary runs by BNHS - told IANS.
"Beside Jhajjar, the birds were spotted at NH-24, Agra-Mathura highway due to presence of farms and supportive habitat along the road," said Singh, adding that in Maharashtra several inhabited nests of Baya were spotted.
Baya are colony birds and male construct the nests around the mating seasons to attract the females. According to experts, on an average it takes about 15-20 days to construct a nest.
Generally a male constructs more than one nest so as to use others as safe houses.
"Most of the nests are above a water body so that predators may not reach them easily. The extra nests are constructed so that in case prey birds or snakes spot the nest with eggs or chicks, the birds may shift to one of the safe houses," said Singh.
Generally a nest sustains one season and the safe houses are also used to shift in case the main nest gets fragile.
Once a very common species across India, Baya are now slowly undergoing a population decline, according to BNHS.
"Their habitats are turning into human dominated landscape like, factories, canals and roads," BNHS pointed out.
"Through monitoring we can collect the population data of these birds to further reduce rates of habitat loss and degradation, along with promoting conservation and awareness," Sohail, Project Manager and Head of CEC, said.
--IANS
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