Puthalam salt pans witness influx of migratory birds and first-time sightings

Migratory birds person begun arriving astatine the brackish pans successful Puthalam adjacent Manakudy, marking the onset of the migratory season, with immoderate caller avian taxon recorded astatine the tract for the archetypal time.

The achromatic brackish-water slat pans successful Puthalam person ever served arsenic a preferred transit constituent and wintertime feeding and roosting crushed for migratory birds. However, this season, which is progressing with a bully fig of arrivals, has witnessed immoderate absorbing sightings astatine the site.

S. Balachandar, erstwhile lawman director, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and managing trustee, Migratory Bird Monitoring Trust (MBMT), highlighted that the fig of birds arriving astatine the tract has been comparatively higher than the erstwhile year.

“While demonstrating vertebrate ringing to officials from the Forest Department, the MBMT squad identified a Common Tern (Sterna hirundo), which had been ringed from Poland, 13 years ago, during its nesting,” helium said.

Mentioning that adjacent astir 15 years ago, helium had recovered a Common Tern ringed from Russia, Mr. Balachandar highlighted that the brackish pans successful Puthalam are located successful a strategical determination successful peninsular India, wherever birds take the spot for little periods of rest.

A Curlew Sandpiper ringed by him successful November 2023 was sighted astatine The Gann, Pembrokeshire, Wales, connected June 19, 2024, helium said. He further noted that Sea Terns, which fortuitously get during sardines and anchovies’ season, enactment for a week successful the bunds of brackish pan, wherever they replenish and rejuvenate earlier taking the longer formation to distant countries.

Anand Shibu, an autarkic vertebrate researcher, noted that helium had made the archetypal ever sighting of Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) astatine brackish pans successful Puthalam connected September 13, 2025. He added that the vertebrate is known for the longest migration, astir 70,000 km betwixt Arctic and Antarctic.

The precise adjacent day, helium had visited the tract on with chap birder Bagavathi Balasubramanian, wherever the duo spotted White-cheeked Tern (Sterna repressa), different archetypal sighting astatine the aforesaid site. “In August, the Red Knot and Red-necked Stint recorded successful the aforesaid area, marking their archetypal grounds successful Kanniyakumari district,” helium added.

Emphasising that the brackish pans successful Puthalam are not lone a stopover site, but besides an important wintertime feeding and roosting crushed for waders arriving from distant lands, Mr. Shibu urged that the captious tract should beryllium conserved, which is threatened by unchecked garbage disposal and different factors affecting its ecology.