Rise in number of monsoon birds in Odisha’s Bhitarkanika: Officials

The number of monsoon birds that throng the mangrove forest belts in Odisha's Bhitarkanika national park for their annual nesting has crossed one lakh with an impressive growth of 11 percent this year, officials said.

According to the findings of a census, 1,08,639 birds, including 62,983 chicks of eleven species, were sighted at the park in Kendrapara district.

It is a rise of 11 percent as compared to 97,866 birds sighted in the 2020 rainy season at the wildlife sanctuary, which has the second-largest mangrove ecosystem in the country, they said.

"The pertinent feature of census findings for the year was that the monsoon birds found a new nesting site at a mangrove forest near Mathadia," one of the officials said.

Lack of human interference, ideal climatic conditions, and the river system has always attracted the monsoon birds towards Bhitarkanika, experts said.