Himachal wildlife wing proposes to project Rakchham- Chitkul Wildlife sanctuary and surrounding areas as the potential birding destination.

This was part of the agenda for organising three-day long second Himachal Bird Festival at Sangla in Kinnaur district that concluded on Tuesday.

The event was organised by Sarahan Wildlife Division of the Wildlife Wing, Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, which was a sequential to the first Himachal Bird Festival, held at Sarahan last November 2017.

The bird festival was inaugurated by Wildlife Forest Department Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF), Dr. Sushil Kapta.

He said that the objective is also to engage frontline staff of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and other bird enthusiasts in building bird database of Himachal Pradesh, and to provide a platform for bird conservationists and birding enthusiasts to discuss and develop potential strategies for Bird conservation in Himachal Pradesh.

During his keynote address, he highlighted the bird-richness of Himachal Pradesh where more than 650 bird species are known to occur.

He further mentioned that this was a move by the Wildlife Wing to boost bird tourism in the state and a platform for the staff of the Forest Department (FD) to interact with bird conservationists.

Kapta expressed hope that this festival serves as a foundation for arriving at novel bird tourism initiatives and bird conservation in the state.

Resource person Saurabh Sawant conducted a bird photography workshop to the frontline staff of the forest department, which should equip them to document biodiversity in protected areas in a better way.

Mumbai-based Naturalist, Photographer and Filmmaker and Ashwin Vishwanathan, Research Scholar at the National Centre for Biological Sciences Ashwin Vishwanathan gave a lecture on the importance of bird monitoring and various citizen science platforms available for documenting bird observations.

Sat Pal Dhiman, Joint Secretary (Forests), during the course of the event highlighted the bird conservation activities of the H.P.F.D. A bird ringing demonstration was also conducted during the festival. Bird Ringing is a science-based method to monitor birds and is a globally carried out in North America and Europe.

Wildlife Wing has been conducting bird ringing at various locations across the state since 2013.

The demonstration at Sangla was conducted with the vision to conduct long-term bird ringing in the Trans- Himalaya to monitor movement of migratory birds.

During the course of the festival, the front-line staff of the FD was trained in bird watching.