There I was, standing knee-deep in a garbage dump, at the resort in Naukuchiatal, Uttarakhand, my camera ready; I didn’t have to wait long. A splendid silvery paradise flycatcher zipped down stylishly, right at my feet and picked up a juicy bluebottle that I had obviously missed and made off with it. It had a nest in a green gully nearby and along with its partner made several to-and-fro trips to the garbage heap. Of course the resort management had no business dumping their trash like this, but, well, the birds were not complaining.
Many species of birds love garbage dumps, landfills and sewage treatment plants. Perhaps, the most famous of them all is the highly endangered Greater Adjutant Stork, a majority of which are to be found on the simmering garbage mounds on the outskirts of Guwahati in Assam, dressed for the part and scavenging for carrion. Vultures, too, rare though they have become, have long being regarded as nature’s ‘clean-up’ crew surpassing the performance of every municipality.
But there are several others that thrive in these stench-filled, simmering surroundings. Squadrons of black kites and crows spiral around garbage dumps in towns, cities and villages; mynas saunter about on the mess picking up titbits, (including excreta) and cattle egrets, once, a splendid blazing white, pick their way through the rubbish, their plumage often stained in brown. The rock doves, their numbers now out of control, follow our moves and feast on the spillage we leave in our wake.
Every winter in Delhi, on the filthy polluted Yamuna clouds of black-and-brown-headed gulls swirl and whirl snatching up titbits and offerings of namkeen from kind but misguided souls. Seagulls, in the West, have dropped the sea from their moniker moving into coastal towns and resorts where some have turned to street thuggery to avail of their daily fix of chips, burgers and pizzas. Back on the river, you shudder as you watch flocks of wintering ducks dabble and dive in the glutinous foamy sludge that is supposed to be a holy river. What on earth do they find that is so delicious and how good could it be for them and their babies?
From the birds’ point of view it is very simple: Thanks to us, garbage dumps and sewage plants provide a 24x7x365 supply of a variety of fare from dead rats and bandicoots to yesterday’s leftover biryani. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, a supermarket that never closes. And every day, trucks roll up with fresh festering stock. Even better, here they are rarely disturbed by humans. The rag pickers that share their habitat, mainly women and children, do not cause any trouble.
A 10-year study at a small site in Miraj, Maharashtra, at a sewage treatment plant and garbage dump, by V Tuljapurkar and V Bhagat, tallied 107 species frequenting the place, including raptors, scavengers, waders, waterfowl and passerines; the migratory waders and waterfowl turn up year after year. Untreated sewage attracts insects, invertebrates, worms, molluscs, frogs and rats apart from organic vegetable matter, which the birds find irresistible.
So how good is this fast-food diet of offal for the birds? Some studies done in the West have found that birds that indulge in kind of fare are in fact healthier and tend to have more and healthier offspring. But in the long-run, this may come at a huge cost as much of the ingested waste maybe extremely toxic, leading to weakening and thin-shelled eggs being laid.
Plastic is one of the chief villains. Larger species like storks and herons may ingest small pieces of plastic which can tear their intestines and larger ones which can block them altogether causing the bird a slow and painful starvation death, on a full stomach!
The toxic chemicals in our waste, like polychlorinated biphenyls and bisphenol may be absorbed by them causing organ damage, egg mortality and lower hatching.
These fast foods, high in protein and processed carbohydrates may play havoc with their metabolism spiking blood sugar and urea, and causing kidney damage.
Deadly pathogens like salmonella thrive in these environs, and birds that ingest them may turn into vectors – spreading them to other creatures including humans.
While rootling around for scraps, birds may be snared by discarded fishing lines and nets and injure themselves on broken bottles and tin cans.
Gulls and egrets were meant to go fishing, over water-bodies or the ocean. Not spend their lives in landfills, sewage plants and on garbage dumps. Migratory white storks in the West have become so used to this 24×7 supply of goodies that they have stopped flying back to Africa from Europe (where they have gorged themselves) and stay here round the year. This has caused problems in Africa, where locusts – on which the storks once fed – thrive and spread havoc, their numbers unchecked.
Birders around the world are faced with a dilemma: should they feed and provide water for birds on a regular basis? Millions do, but in doing so are these well-meaning souls altering the very structure and balance of nature? At one time I used to put out water and scraps for the birds and take great delight when mynas would dip rock-hard pieces of bread in the water to soften them up, swallow them, drink and then take a bath in the same dish! But I stopped when the MCD came around fining people for keeping standing water which they said would breed mosquitoes. So now I just watch the birds come down when the lawn has been watered (or just after shower), picking up their snacks from the wet soil and freshening up under the dripping leaves.
The Greater Adjutant Stork on garbage mounds on the outskirts of Guwahati in Assam (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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