After seven years, lesser flamingos at Pulicat

CHENNAI: After missing from the spot for seven years, lesser flamingos are back at the Pulicat Lake Bird Sanctuary in Tiruvallur district.
A small flock, numbering about 100, has been sighted on the backwater along the route from the Pulicat creek to Annamalaicherry fishing hamlet, said birder K V R K Thirunanaranan.
Sikandar, a boatman, said he and many of his ilk had been observing these pinkish birds for about 45 days now. "This time the birds have even extended their stay at Pulicat. During high tide, they move to the Andhra Pradesh part of the Pulicat. They come back to the Tamil Nadu part when there is low tide," he said.
During their observation, Thirunaranan said his team noticed that the flamingos were feeding on algae found along with seagrass on the lakebed. Local fishermen also confirmed that once the algae availability goes down, the flamingos fly away, he said.
The lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor) come from Rann of Kutch in Gujarat and Africa, said S Balachandran, deputy director of the Bombay Natural History Society. Their major breeding ground is Rann of Kutch. One can see thousands of lesser flamingos in Navi Mumbai and the Thane Creek in Mumbai, he added."Unlike Mumbai, the lesser flamingo population here is exceedingly small," he said.
Thirunaranan said greater flamingos, which usually arrive in January or February, have only now come to the Pulicat lake this year. During his visit on Tuesday, he recorded more than 2,500 of them all adults at Pulicat. He said about 75 juvenile greater flamingos have come to the Pallikaranai marshland too.