Berhampur: The sprawling Bhanja Vihar campus of Berhampur University in Odisha’s Ganjam district serves as a base to host several winged guests with the onset of winter.
As most of the students are unaware that the campus is also a paradise of birds, the Department of Environmental Studies of the university Saturday organized its first bird walk on the campus, about 180 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, to commemorate the 126 birthday of Salim Ali, the bird man of India.
Around 50 participants, including students, researchers and faculty members of the university birding around four-km on the campus for around four hours to record the winged guests inside the campus.
Geetanjali Dash, vice-chancellor of the university inaugurated the bird walk in presence of Amlan Nayak, divisional forest officer (DFO) Berhampur.
The university campus is rich with flora and fauna. It has also hosted a number of migratory birds who settled here after flying thousands of kilometres, the VC said, adding that everyone has the responsibility to protect its rich biodiversity.
Since waterfowls flew to the campus during the winter, the VC said the university would develop its existing small water bodies to host the winged guests.
The main objective of the bird walk was to explore, discover the birds and to enjoy nature, at the same time to create awareness among the students about different birds, said B Anjan Kumar Prusty, head of the department, Department of Environmental Studies.
While more than 100 different species of birds sighted on the campus throughout the year, we have recorded 39 species, including six migratory species during the birding period, he said.
The common species found during the walk included house crow, black kite, common myna, rock pigeon, red-vented bulbul, white-throated kingfisher, Indian grey hornbill, etc, he added
A photo exhibition was also organized in the department, where the photographs of different birds, sighted in the campus in different seasons, were exhibited on the occasion. DFO, Berhampur inaugurated the photo exhibition.
PTI