Bird lovers keep water for visitors' in summer

Alappuzha: Bird lovers here are keeping a bowl of water on their windowsills summer visitors to their homes as the mercury level keeps rising.

The avian guests include flocks of mynas, bulbuls, babblers and crows and they used to get a warm welcome at village homes. The bird lovers say many have forgotten that custom and they are trying remind to them about it.

Alappuzha Nature History Society joint-secretary Harikumar Mannar has been doing this ritual every summer for a decade. He says in the past these birds depended mostly on the local ponds. With the ponds vanishing homes, the soaring summer heat has become a testing time for them.

“With my experience of handling birds rescue, I have identified that lots of them get distressed due to heat in summer. They lose their strength to fly due to dehydration,” he says.

“Though many like-minded people arrange water, large section of society is still unaware of extending small help to create a bird-zone in their compounds.”

In Haripad, a group of youngsters have been running a campaign called Pravakalkoru Neerkudam (a water pot for birds) for last three years setting up bath facilities with earthen pot in many places.

Althaf, a volunteer, said they used to set up water pots at 60 places across the district.

“We make people aware of craving birds in summer,” he said.

They ask people to fill water in pairs of weighty pots so that it could not trip over when birds bath.

“The birds like babblers and bulbuls do not drink water. They want to bathe every day,” says Pradeep Kumar, a bird lover.

“Since most water bodies have either vanished or dried up due to the human intervention, it’s the time to take a pledge to conserve animals and birds."