Winged Guests: Migratory Birds Enliven Veerapuram Village
The Painted Storks traditionally take shelter in the village during the breeding season even as the landscape offers poor facilities.
Anantapur: The tiny village Veerapuram in Chilamathur maThe Painted Storks traditionally take shelter in the village during the breeding season even as the landscape offers poor facilities.The Painted Storks traditionally take shelter in the village during the breeding season even as the landscape offers poor facilities. Only four big trees exist there, closer to houses. The migratory birds arrive and perch on the trees big and small, season after season, for more than four decades.
Neither the forest nor the tourism department took any significant initiative to protect the birds. These birds reach the village after flying a long distance towards the Karnataka water tanks and take shelter on the limited number of trees.
During this migration season, the birds arrived a month late and have started nesting on small branches of the trees in the village. At least 1200 birds have arrived there for nesting and breeding this time.
They stay for about five months for breeding and return with their chicks. The birds have to adjust with the size of small trees for nestling and mingling with the people.
Interestingly, the village that has 300 houses hosts more than 3000 migratory birds, which come, lay eggs and grow the chicks.
Due to poor facilities, however, many birds suffer injuries. There have been times when eggs and the chicks fall down from the nests.
Narayana Reddy, a villager from Veerapuram, lamented that the villagers often tried to save them by keeping them at a separate centre. But, a large number of chicks die because of lack of proper care and shelter, he said.
Though the Anantapur district administration initiated area development by promising new facilities three decades ago, the village remains badly neglected. “The government didn’t take the matters seriously,” the villagers lamented and urged MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna to take the matters forward and develop this area as a tourism spot.
Forest officials say they are planning to set up small tanks on the outskirts of the village along with fishes for the birds to reduce the burden of flying long distances to get fishes.