Rama Krishna Sangem
Bird lovers of Hyderabad like BRS Rajya Sabha MP J Santosh Kumar’s Sunday photography of nature and wildlife. Santosh, founder of Green India Challenge (GIC) six years ago in response to CM KCR’s call to promote greenery in Telangana has been posting on Twitter photos of wildlife under #weeklydose of photography. For the last few months, he has been posting birds found in and around Hyderabad.
There are a few birdwatchers groups on social media as well as offline in Hyderabad. In fact, they have been meeting regularly weekends to take photos of birds – of various kinds – at different locations in the city. Such nature lovers are thrilled to see pics clicked by Santosh on a regular basis. “The young MP is taking care to tweet his weekly pics of birds for the last few weeks, that’s nice,” said K Sampath Kumar, a birdwatcher, near Osmania University campus.
Till before the Covid pandemic, Sampath along with his friends used to go to OU campus to take pics of birds and flowers in the landscape garden. “We stopped it for the last three years, but I am happy to see tweets of MP Santhosh on birds of the city,” said Sampath while talking to Excel India. There are more than a dozen bird lovers groups in the city, he addedd.
Birds of Hyderabad
Hyderabad city is known for at least 250 kinds of birds, till a few decades back. The city is surrounded by major lakes like Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar and jungles like Narsapur and Vikarabad etc. “The city too is rich with parks, where many bird species were spotted,” said Vijay Kumar Gupta, a resident of Bagh Lingampally, and a birdwatcher.
Most birds have now disappeared from the trees and parks as construction of high rise buildings became rampant. Thick concrete jungle has made these birds displaced. Green zones amidst colonies too have shrunken, making commonly sighted household sparrows too a rare guests. Thanks to MP Santosh’s picks, youngsters are taking to photography and clicking birds, said Gupta, now in his 60s.
