As temperatures rise and natural water sources dwindle, thirsty garden birds can be observed hovering around water taps turned ever so tightly. Photographers have captured these poignant avian moments emanating from a dry, scorching heat. As temperatures rise and natural water sources dwindle, thirsty garden birds can be observed hovering around water taps turned ever so tightly. Photographers have captured these poignant avian moments emanating from a dry, scorching heat.
Perhaps, the most disturbing photograph that mirrored the vivid and expressive emotions displayed by parched birds emerged from the Perch Check Dam in the Shivalik foothills behind the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER). The visual was of a checkered keelback (Asiatic water snake) suffering from dehydration and prey scarcity due to its aquatic habitat being virtually annihilated overnight.
Unlike an evolving drought situation that entails water resources drying out slowly, warning wild species and allowing them a chance to adapt and migrate, the dam emptied out in 48 hours after a mechanical failure in the sluice gates. The keelback species shelters within rocks and niche spaces besides the dam’s water and preys on frogs and fish by swimming out. Like other wild species dying in the empty dam, keelbacks were accustomed to a perennial source of water for 27 years, ever since the dam’s inception.
The keelback had left the dry dam’s immediate vicinity in a fruitless search for water and prey and was photographed by Amardeep Singh, a bird photographer and chassis design section head at Maruti Suzuki India’s plant in Gurgaon. “I was taken aback by the snake’s behaviour. It did not move away or put up an aggressive posture when we got close to it. The tongue was not flickering. It slowly raised its head once and then lowered it to conserve energy. It was displaying an inert and listless disposition due to the catastrophic loss of its water habitat,” Singh told this writer.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/wild-buzz-parched-dam-101619284023308.html