Jaipur:
Over a thousand bird lovers participated in a three-day bird fair held in Udaipur division in South Rajasthan, which is emerging as a hub of potential sites for bird watching.
The fair ended today with a meeting of experts and bird lovers who in four separate groups visited different sites in the division yesterday, and gave reports and suggestions for developing the sites, an official said.
"Over a thousand bird, wildlife, environment and nature lovers experienced the wonderful sights and sounds of the wildlife rich habitats of Udaipur and its environs in the fair from December 20 to 22 and they also gave their suggestions to develop the potential sites after discussing with local people," Satish Kumar Sharma, Assistant Conservator of Forest-Udaipur told PTI today.
He said around 500 school children were among those who visited Pichola Lake site for bird watching on the first day on December 20.
Four groups headed by experts separately visited Gap Sagar in Dungarpur, Jawai Dam in Pali, Menar in Udaipur and one site in Chittorgarh yesterday to explore the sites.
"All the four groups prepared their reports and submitted it today. The reports are now being compiled and a Udaipur declaration will be issued tomorrow which will be forwarded to the state government so that those sites could be further developed," he said.
Sharma said a few rare birds were spotted during the fair which was organized by the forest department in coordination with the tourism department.
Udaipur, popularly known as Lake City, of India has numerous water bodies and forest areas which support a large diversity of arboreal, terrestrial and aquatic resident and migratory birds. During the winter season, the water bodies are visited by migratory water fowls from Himalayas, Central Asia and Europe.
Many water bodies of rural areas like Menar, Sei Dam, Ghasa, Vallabhnagar, Badwai are worth birding and a few water bodies of surrounding districts like Jawai of Pali district, Sabela and Gap Sagar of Dungarpur district, Sareri of Bhilwara and Vagan Dam of Chittorgarh district are also worth exploring, he added