Manipur gearing up to welcome Amur falcons- world’s longest-travelling migratory bird

Imphal, Oct 11: Manipur’s Tamenglong district is gearing up to welcome their winged guests, Amur falcons-which is world’s longest-travelling raptors, even as the district administration has put a ban on killing and selling of the migratory birds during its roosting period.

“As part of our ongoing programme to safeguard Amur falcons, we will soon engage village volunteers to carry out patrolling along with our own forest guards at the roosting sites to thwart any attempt to kill the birds,” Tamenglong's Divisional Forest Officer Amandeep said.

“This time, we are planning to tag satellite transmitters on two healthy birds to study their migratory routes and for this purpose, we have contacted scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India.”

The Amur falcon, locally known as Akhuaipuina usually arrives in Manipur, mostly in Tamenglong and neighbouring Nagaland in mid-October from their breeding grounds in South Eastern Siberia and Northern China and stays in the region for a month.

These pigeon-sized birds, which undertake a yearly journey covering up to 22,000 km, leave the Northeast region in November after having enough food for their non-stop flight to Africa, where they spend their winters.

They also undertake the longest regular overwater passage of any bird of prey, crossing over the Indian Ocean between Western India and tropical East Africa, a journey of more than 4,000 km, which also includes nocturnal flight.

As in previous years, the Amur Falcon Dance Festival will also be held by the forest authorities in collaboration with Rainforest Club Tamenglong in the last part of October or early part of November. There are also plans to write stories on the falcons by the villagers and the same would be published, the DFO added.

Rainforest Club Tamenglong, a Tamenglong based non-profit organisation is formed for engaging it's members in various social activities and campaigns relating to conservation of environment and wildlife in the district. On October 6, the Tamenglong District administration ordered a ban on the killing and selling of Amur Falcons. It also asked the village authorities to deposit air guns in their custody till November end.

It may be worth mentioning here that the radio-tagging programme of Amur Falcon in Manipur was undertaken in two phases, first in 2018 and then in 2019, to conserve wildlife and also to study the route of these long-distance migratory birds and the environmental patterns along the route.