Bar-headed Geese Spotted at the erstwhile Basai Wetland Today!

It is amazing to see Bar-headed Geese returning to their wintering habitat in the now defunct wetland that was once a vibrant Biodiversity hotspot in Gurgaon that supported a vibrant ecosystem! What was once a huge wetland is now a small dried up patch of wasteland on which Bar-headed Geese keep returning every year. Unfortunately this patch which is imbedded in their navigation history has shrunk to a few square meters!

The Basai Wetland in Gurgaon is a prime example of the desecration of a prime wetland by unscrupulous builders and various organizations that have deliberately turned a blind eye to the wanton destruction of an important biodiversity hotspot. First they opened waste sewer pipes into the marshland, then they allowed people to breed the banned catfish. Now, buildings are sprouting from the marshland like mushrooms overnight, and flyovers bisect the once thriving wetland into slices!

Spotting Bar-headed Geese at the Basai wetland remind me of the poem, 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou and I would like to quote the first stanza below:

You may write me down in history
With bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

The lines by Maya Angelo might as well be the voice of disappearing wetlands in India, or even the voices of migratory birds fighting back, returning to what were once their wintering habitats! Unfortunately, much money is being pumped into non-viable Ramsar wetland sites like the Sultanpur National Park which doesn't have its own source of water has become more of an arid wasteland that defies artificial resuscitation!

Of course we all know that Bar-headed Geese of great importance to scientific research because it is baffling how they are able to fly at heights of over 22000 feet without Oxygen. Also the accuracy with which they navigate during migration to the Indian Subcontinent is a mystery. Their endurance in flight is exemplary, and their migratory patterns have been of much study.