Brendan Harding

Gujarat - For the birds!

January 2012

Recently as a guest of Gujarat Tourism Department I was fortunate to visit Ahmedabad and this enticing part of India for the 2nd Annual Bird Watchers Conference. These are some of my thoughts on the visit.

For many years now I thought I knew a thing or two about birds and conservation. But I was mistaken, and badly. It took me twenty-eight hours, two international flights, one domestic flight and one long bus ride through the roads of the Indian sub-continent to discover how mistaken I had been.

It was right at the end of the domestic flight section of this epic journey that my ignorance was annoyingly compounded. The sun had just risen outside the arrivals terminal of Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport. An Indian sky was glowing pinker than the whites of my tired eyes and the city was stirring to life. I just wanted to sleep.

As I scanned the line of waiting greeters I saw the sign, which a slightly built boy was holding achingly high above his head, like the winner of some bizarre trophy. ' 2nd Annual Global Bird Watchers Conference' it declared in bold letters above the image of a streamlined crane gliding across an invisible horizon. I introduced myself, the boy smiled briefly. "The bus is this way," he said and motioned me out onto the filling streets. Already the heat was rising and joggers wearing facemasks braved the morning traffic. The smog was visible, tangible, tasteable. I resisted the urge to spit.

We waited long beyond the five minutes the boy had mentioned. Three-wheeled motor taxis crawled the kerb past where I stood, their drivers, like the grey crows perched high in the Gando Baval trees, eagerly scouring the streets for early-morning pickings. In the sky above the streets a movement caught my eye. A small familiar blur drew lazy circles in a pattern I recognised from another continent - Africa. "Black Kite" I said to the boy. His look told me that I might as well have announced that I was the King of Siam.

The bus arrived and gobbled me up hurriedly from the growing throngs of people. Inside the bus the faces of strangers smiled tiredly at the new arrival. Wearing a jacket and formal shirt (in the vain hope of getting upgraded on one of my Jet Airways flights) I felt overdressed. The others, I quickly noticed, were dressed for war, or a small revolution at the very least. Camouflage jackets, cargo trousers, desert boots and wide brimmed desert hats must have become the rage since I left home I thought, settling into the nearest empty seat. And then the commotion started.

"Stop the bus," someone shouted. The driver ignored the command, being far too busily occupied attempting to keep his charges alive in the clamour of rush-hour traffic. "Up there, on the wire, it's a green sunbird." And sure enough it was. Cameras were drawn at the speed of Wyatt Earp's pistol hand and the clicking commenced.

The rest of the journey continued in the same vein. Egrets, little egrets, cattle egrets, rose-ringed parakeets, Indian pond-herons, spoonbills, common kestrels, and the infectious-sounding streptopelia decaocto, which turned out to be nothing more than the Eurasian collared-dove - you know, the one that goes whooo whooo whooooo in the mornings. Camera's prickled from every window of the ancient bus. Voices rose into excited shouts as each new species was confirmed. And where I sat my head ached from lack of sleep.
So these are birders I thought. Twitchers, birdwatchers, lonely, middle-aged men and women who wear anoraks and sip pints of bitter in the corner table of their local while listening to imagined bird songs in the dark depths of their lonely minds. Except they were not. In fact they were the opposite. They were mostly young, and vibrant, and exuded a lust for life and the natural world. They were knowledgeable and friendly and hailed from every part of the globe. Birding is a big business I thought, and I was right.
The 2nd annual global bird watching conference (GBWC) followed on from the first – naturally enough – and was the brainchild of a coupling between the Gujarat Tourism Board and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICCI). Gujarat, on India's western seaboard, has long been the pride of India, and is seen as the country's most ambitious and growth-centred states. It boasts the world's largest oil refinery, the fastest-growing economy in India and has a per capita GDP that is almost double that of the national average.
But along with the commercial value of Gujarat's potential as an international 'birding' centre there also lies an important conservational factor. At the epicentre of many major avian migratory routes the state is home to well over 500 species of birds, many of which are on the World Wildlife list of the most critically endangered. Gujarat is playing a two-handed game, commercialism and conservation, and from what I saw, it appears to be winning.
For two days we toured the fertile backcountry of Gujarat. We trundled down pastoral lanes, past brilliant green meadows and marsh-like wetlands, clicking and pointing all the way; and everywhere there were birds. In the fields where farmers planted rice, their brightly coloured clothes conveying images from an artist's dream, woolly-necked storks, greylag geese, great-crested grebes, Asian openbills, glossy ibis, the beautiful red-headed, black ibis, and the greatly endangered Sarus crane shared the open spaces. In this highly spiritual country there was no apparent conflict between man and his feathered counterpart. The land does not belong to one or the other, the land and its resources are simply, shared.

It was from the notaries of the birding world, who were gracious with their time I knowledge, that I learned so much. Dr Ted Floyd – the editor of 'Birding' magazine and leading light of US ornithological circles – Saleel Tambe – a renowned nature photographer – and Dr. Bharat Jethva – the South Asia International wetlands coordinator who taught me of my ignorance in the most charming manner possible; through the lense of a camera. I knew nothing I discovered but despite this I was only rewarded, by my mentors, for what little knowledge I did possess and my willingness to learn.

Bird watching is far more than just looking at birds I learned. It is also the active part which birders take in the conservation of these birds – their identification, recording of numbers and breeding patterns, presence of juveniles – that makes the prospect so much more interesting. The chance to play a part in the survival of species against great demands being made on their existence.

It was while the main body of my group had gone into the field to count and catalogue an extremely large flock of Sarus cranes that I had my epiphany. Sitting by the side of a lazy irrigation stream, I watched as a little egret fished for small fish and insects. In a bush above him a black drongo, a common little bird with a cutely forked tail, sat perched, his gaze aimed only on the movements of the milky white egret. Each time the egret pierced his long yellow beak in to the shallow waters and emerged with a wriggling larva or insect on its point the drongo swooped from his perch and relieved his fair-feathered cousin of his spoils. For ninety minutes I was enthralled as the act played out. For ninety minutes I was far removed from the world, despite the traffic that passed only feet away. I remember thinking, how much of a shame, no, a crime against nature it would be if our children, or theirs, would be denied such a moment. It was then I realised that it is the birders and the government of places like Gujarat and their partners who hold the power to ensure this play will continue and thrive long into the future.
Gujarat has taken a stance and deserves to be commended. Despite it's expanding population and the encroachment of industry into the natural world they have decided to stand up and make a change for the better. Through the Gujarat tourism department and FICCI this change is becoming a reality. For wasn't it from the mouth of another Gujarati, Mohandas Karanchand Gandhi, the Mahatma, that flowed the words which still resonate through the fields and wetlands of India's most proactive state, "we must be the change we wish to see."

Congratulations Gujarat and long may you strive for that change.

GETTING THERE

The author flew to India with Jet Airways