Mumbaikars flock to ‘last’ flamingo festival

Not wanting to miss possibly the last flamingo festival held at Sewri, Mumbaikars on Saturday braved the sun and heat and flocked to Sewri jetty to catch a glimpse of the pink migratory birds.

According to Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), which is organising the festival, it may not be held next year onwards owing to construction activity for the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) over the Sewri mudflats which could keep the birds away.

The bird-watchers at the jetty were a motley group of school children out on a class trip, nature enthusiasts, families out for a weekend trip and photographers, both professional and amateurs. From a DSLR camera with huge lenses to a humble mobile phone camera, almost everyone was busy clicking away trying to catch a frame of the flamingos.

For 81-year-old Madhu Gandhi, visiting the annual flamingo festival was a regular affair. Armed with binoculars, he said, “Not just during the festival, my wife and I come here often to check out the birds. But we visit the festival to enjoy the cheerful ambience.” When asked if they managed to click good photos of the flamingos, his wife Ruma Gandhi (75) said, “We did get to see the birds before they moved away with the high tide, but the photos we clicked were okay. We do not have those big cameras so we had to make do with our phone cameras.” She also had a pair of binoculars dangling from her shoulders.

Among the crowd, there were also some for whom this was the first visit to the festival. Seventy five-year-old S.N. Chattopadhyay, a retired mining engineer from Kolkata, had come to the city to pay a visit to his daughter. When he came to know about the opportunity to take a close look at flamingos, he did not want to miss out on the chance. “My whole family is here. My wife, my daughter and her children; we heard this might be the last time the festival is held here so we did not want to miss it,” said Mr Chattopadhyay.

Atul Sathe, PRO of BNHS, said that because of the possibility that the festival might not be held from next year onwards, the turnout was better than the previous years. Speaking about the construction of the MTHL — connecting Sewri with Uran — over the Sewri mudflats, Mr Sathe said, “We had requested that the MTHL route be re-aligned to 500 m south to the Sewri side, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

The noise and air pollution caused by the construction activity might not make the birds return next year, he added.

The mudflats at Sewri are the most extensive in Mumbai and they attract over 15,000 flamingos every year.