At Kaggaladu, where they nest

It was blazing hot, but a gentle breeze nudged me, bringing down the heat immediately. A couple of curious kids followed us around the fort, while a few men slept under the shelter of the pillars.

An old temple stood on the banks of the lake. The swallows were flying around near the tank, attracting my attention.

As I trained my binoculars on them, Vishwanath, my guide and auto driver looked at me rather curiously and asked, “Madam, you like birds! I will show you where to go!”

This was how I discovered Kaggaladu, a small village with just a handful of houses, lost somewhere on the highway near Sira town. There was nothing special about this hamlet - not even a board or a milestone to announce its presence. I looked around and saw a few men sleeping under trees to escape the afternoon heat, a group of children playing and some women carrying stacks of hay. You would probably give this village a miss as it clones any of India’s innumerable villages. And yet, the village had become popular, with the arrival of a few winged visitors, who have made it their home.

The birds were in many ways the milestone that announces that you are in Kaggaladu. A tall tamarind tree, full of painted storks greeted us. And their call echoed down the village. The green of the branches turned into a montage of pink and white as the painted storks had started nesting here.

I craned my neck to get a good picture here, when one of the locals told me to head into one of the interior roads of the village. We missed the small lane and headed straight, overlooking some fields and a tank filled with painted storks, grey herons, pond herons and a few water birds. We interrupted a couple of women who were in their farms who guided us back to the village.

“There are trees where you can see the birds much closer...go near the kote,” they said referring to a small stone wall, that they believe is part of an ancient fort. Surrounding the wall were a few tamarind trees that were completely dotted by these painted storks. While some were busy nesting, others were building their nests.  The birds were hardly shy, as they willingly posed for us, some with their wings spread wide .

I learnt that the birds had been there for a couple of months and that they would probably stay here well until monsoon, some even longer. The villagers were still waiting for their favourite visitors – the grey herons which had selected the trees here for nesting about two decades ago. The village had now turned into a full-fledged heronry and the villagers seemed very proud of their new visitors and were fiercely protective of them. “They have been coming here every year for more than ten years and we don’t touch the trees,” they said.

It started in the Nineties...

Kaggaladu became the haunt of the painted storks and grey herons in the 1990s when the birds started nesting here in a single tamarind tree. It was believed that they came here from another village after some poaching activity had killed a few birds. The tanks and fields were abundant resources of food for them and with protective villagers around, the birds could not have asked for more.

The villagers however had one request. They shared a special relationship with the avian creatures and they would not want their peaceful co-existence altered in any way, and that for them, included absence of noisy tourists who would frighten the birds away. “Come and see them, but please do not disturb,” was their parting shot.