White-bellied Heron

Photo courtesy: Mr. Yeshey Dorji, bird photographer.

Lately, before the news covered on 'White-bellied Heron, pride of Berti', ended I became quite ambitious about easy watching of the bird along Bertichhu, zhemgang. One of the world's critically endangered bird species.   

Before the dream of watching the bird dies, I have planned my travel to reach the site and have nonchalant one-to-one watch over this exquisite bird - feedings and patterns.

The place somewhere lies to a good distance of Forty kilometers stretched away from the place where I live and work. Unless, one has a very genuine reason to travel to the place, one can. Otherwise, it is very expensive affairs to-and-fro travel for bird watching alone. However, with much sacrifices and without compromising my passion for the love of nature and the bird, I have made myself in the place on one national holidays.

Upon reaching the place, my first priority was to have a closer watch on its habitat, style, nest, body size and the population. I have stayed along the main stream for almost three hours trying to locate and photograph the bird movement. I have even reached near its nesting place to have even more closer watch with the help of one kind locals. But unfortunately I couldn't locate and view the bird I was looking for. Which left me some disappointment over expensive affairs but I have got some new birds species on my bird list. And as a bird enthusiast and photographer, it's enough to have one clean and quality bird shot and some landscape frames, which is enough if you can't make it to Bird you are looking for.   

It's a good initiative that the government and responsible agencies are trying their best to protect such bird species from its extinction from the land. But, at the same time it's not easy to conserve the natural habitats of birds, animals or fishes in this time of modernization. While the population of the world keeps on increasing, farmland and other necessity of life is becoming increasingly scarce. We can't stop people from mining our mountains and keep away from modern amenities but now it is time for education sector to take extra responsibilities to educate every mind on such important issues.

According to the international bird survey report, white-bellied heron is one of the fifty rarest bird species in the world. Today, there are about sixty herons in the world of which thirty of them have homed in Bhutan. For a small landlocked country, the presence of this bird is a trademark, a brand to say that Bhutan has rich forest coverage and good policy in place to protect its survival and habitats for all times to come. When the world outside is busy experimenting and experiencing on to a chain-revolution and Hi-tech technology era, I remained simply woven over the feathers of this little bird.  

Should we want our next generation to uphold on such values to mine everything for human goods? We don't want our young people to say – what is and how white-bellied heron looks like in reality, or is it possible to manufacture in factories for daily syllabus to learn by our Youth in schools?   

Photo courtesy: Mr. Yeshey Dorji, a pair of White-bellied heron in their nest,
a home-sweet-home. 

What all our common people have to understand about the bird conservation and preservation of habitat is everyone's responsibility. The concern agencies scaling some good initiatives forward through various awareness program is to benefit the live of bird species, because the future of this bird species is very uncertain. Let's not demand for the iron lance from the government to protect bird backyard. Simply creating awareness and protecting its natural habitats is enough to fight against its extinction. We don't want any people involving in its trade deal to China, Tibet or anywhere in the world like 'Cats eye' trade. This bird neither wear costly linen nor does it have any such expensive values to benefit your lungs and kidney but the bird population is getting lesser by each year, indicating its extinction. 

I am not a lone mighty warrior responsible to prove next White-bellied Heron generation like to be Dinasorous period.