Rama Krishna Sangem
Former Rajya Sabha MP J Santosh Kumar captured in his camera two beautiful ibises-cranes this Sunday, June 15. They are of white body with pale yellowish heads. What distinguishes common cranes from ibises? or even cattle egrets? They all belong to the common family of water wading birds, with some dissimilarities in features, size and shapes. If our regular cranes are slightly bigger, ibises are smaller and egrets of medium size.
Santosh, founder-activist of Green India Challenge, posted on X our pics of these birds as part of his #WeekendPhotography campaign.He has been posting photos of bids of various types of late, thought sometime other animals and wildlife too figure. These white cranes or ibises are primarily traced to water bodies, lakes, ponds and shallow tanks. They thrive on small insects etc. Their presence is a symbol of plentiful of water, thus in turn copies rains in this season.
This pair of cranes are laying around on the banks of a water body, waiting for their prey. The early onset of monsoon and copious rains filled most water bodies in Telangana. Naturally, cranes of all types throng them. We may encourage our children to take up tiny projects on details of these water-lined birds and their taxonomy and behavior etc. Going to lakes like Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar and taking photos would be a good idea!