kokkare bellur – the village of storks

Ranganthittu in Karnataka is well known for its beautiful bird sanctuary. One not-so-well known place near it is a curious place, a village where one can walk around, and find on the rooftops of a lot of houses, many beautiful birds nesting on them!

Most of them are painted storks, and the villagers have over generations been existing peacefully with them. They say they’re used to their sounds. Asked “do you feed them?” the ladies reply “they take care of themselves, looking around for fishes in the nearby river”. One of them is explaining that the storks are providing shade for their children with their wings.

Such a beautiful story of co-existence between nature and people, who take pride in their bond!

A little boy shares his impressive knowledge…

Pelican, Painted Stork, Egret and Cormorant, all migrate from Ranganthittu, Australia (pelican), Siberia. They come back in December, they remove all the nests and rebuild new ones. They feel quite happy when they see it. When they leave in June, the villagers feel a little sad.

Apart from the pelicans, the other birds found nestling and breeding in the village trees are the painted stork, little cormorant, black ibis, grey heron, black-crowned night heron and Indian pond heron.

Birds are seen nesting in clusters of 15 to 20 pairs per tree and are thought to use the same tree each year. They arrive after monsoon rains ends in September when the birds create their nests, lay eggs from October to November, thereafter fledge around for three months after laying of eggs, till March and tirelessly feed their hatchlings through the summer season. As summer peaks in May, they re-migrate, year after year, except when they sense drought conditions in their colonial habitat.

~ wiki

Many of the villagers shared that they feel some sort of kinship with the birds. Some say…

For us, these birds are like a daughter coming home for delivery….