Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
At dawn on a Sunday, as the city stirs reluctantly from sleep, Hyderabad’s bird enthusiasts lace up their shoes, sling binoculars and telephoto lenses around their necks, and set out carrying with them the Birds of India, a field guide. Their meeting place is the edge of trails and lakes, where the first calls of the day are already in the air.
Also read: India’s bees and butterflies are vanishing, and taking our future with them
On August 31, at 5 AM, Café 21 in Kokapet served as the meeting point. From there, a caravan of nature enthusiasts set off toward the grasslands of Yenkathal in Vikarabad district. It was the season of the southwest monsoon, when raptors sweep the skies, quails scurry in the fields, and malkohas and francolins share the scrub with a multitude of other grassland birds. For the Hyderabad Birding Pals, this was another chapter in their weekly ritual.
Birdwatching: A growing cultural hobby
As the morning unfolded, the fields filled with wings and calls; raptors gliding overhead, bright plumage flashing in the light, flocks chattering in chorus. Birders lifted binoculars, focused lenses, and clicked away, capturing rare sightings. From 6 AM to 10 AM, they documented species, later uploading their finds to eBird, the global citizen-science database created by students at Cornell University, New York. Along the trail, they held discussions on the wonders of Telangana’s birdlife, the urgency of conservation, the joy of watching nature unspool in its own time.
At India’s annual Big Bird Day, Hyderabad birders clinched awards by recording over 270 species in a single day.
What began in February 2014 with four enthusiasts at Ameenpur Lake — Harikrishna Adepu, Rajeev Khandelwal, Naresh Vadrev, and Phanikrishna Ravi — has become a movement. In just 11 years, the Hyderabad Birding Pals have organised an astonishing 536 bird walks. From a handful of members, their numbers have soared past 10,000. The walks are always free, conducted with no-profit motive, open to anyone with curiosity and a pair of eyes.
Indian Pitta Pitta brachyura is a colourful stubby-tailed bird, also known as Navrang, translated as nine colours.
The Pals have roamed far and wide: Hyderabad’s Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar, the Ameenpur and Fox lakes, the Botanical Gardens, the Nallamala forests, Ananthagiri Hills, Bejjur forest, Kinnerasani in Khammam, Pedda Cheruvu in Warangal, and beyond. They have even ventured into Andhra Pradesh’s lush Maredumilli forests. Alongside seasoned naturalists, women, youth, and first-timers all walk together, proof that birdwatching is no longer a niche passion but a growing cultural hobby.
The goal: Bird conservation
Globally, there are more than 13,000 bird species. Of these, 1,300 grace India, and the Hyderabad Birding Pals have recorded 542 in Telangana alone. Yet alongside joy comes sorrow. Where once flamingoes filled Ameenpur Lake, pollution and urban encroachment have silenced their pink chorus. Sparrows, once nesting in every home, are vanishing. Even the ubiquitous mynas and parakeets are fewer. “Birds need food and safe nests; both are disappearing,” laments Harikrishna Adepu, an avid birdwatcher, photographer and traveller by passion.
The peregrine falcon is a well-respected falconry bird due to its strong hunting ability, high trainability, versatility, and availability via captive breeding.
The Pals are not just wanderers with cameras. They are campaigners, too. Under the banner Save Nallamala, they have opposed uranium mining in fragile forests. They have cleaned lakes, planted saplings, and urged schoolchildren to learn bird names from the Birds of Telangana Pocket Guide, a field manual they published. Exhibitions, lectures, and outreach programmes spread the message: to protect birds is to protect the environment itself.
Also read: Why India, the land of Salim Ali, should be worried about its disappearing birds
Their efforts have drawn recognition. At India’s annual Big Bird Day, Hyderabad birders have clinched awards by recording over 270 species in a single day. The Telangana Biodiversity Board even declared Ameenpur Lake as the state’s first Biodiversity Lake, a testament to its richness and to the citizen scientists who champion it.
Week after week, the Birding Pals gather, sometimes under blazing skies, sometimes under the shimmer of winter migrants. They walk not only for the delight of spotting a raptor’s wingspan or the flash of a kingfisher, but to keep alive the fragile link between birds, people, and land. “Bird conservation is our only goal,” says Harikrishna Adepu. “Every bird walk is a step toward that promise.” So, if you wish to lose yourself in the rustle of wings and the chorus of dawn, you know where to look. Just join them on a Sunday morning, binoculars in hand, heart open to flight.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.