Migratory birds travelling thousands of miles all the way from Siberia arrive at Nal Sarovar, around 40 kms from my home. It includes Flamingos, Siberian crane and dozens of other birds who visit the place every year to the marshland with just the knee deep water that comes from high tide of the sea. It is a mix of Salty and fresh water which is naturally blended to breed a lot of fish and other feed for the birds to take a break from their onward journey and make this as a healthy and tasty transit point.

The place is not a man made place. But humans are now trying to destroy it under the disguise of saving the place. The first thing they did was to throng this place and throw a lot of plastic garbage. And when the tourism department of Gujarat intervened, it did a completely illogical step. It diverted river waters to fill up the place to compensate for the low level of water and to attract more birds. The fresh river water replaced the semi salty water which made it to this place from high tide at the sea.

The result was counterproductive with a huge fall of visiting birds. Not that they don’t take this place but the quality of shallow water and the quantity of feed got depleted. What was once a knee deep water is now waist high where these birds cant see their preys.