In Nature’s Wonderland

Bittu Sahgal

There is something about mountains that takes my breath away. It’s not just their huge size; it has something to do with their purity. Mountains have character. They represent strength and uprightness. I studied in Bishop Cotton School, Simla, high up in the Himalayas and when I shut my eyes, even today, I can almost feel the cold clean air and smell the freshness of pine needles. Just outside our school boundary the forest began. On weekends we were sometimes allowed to walk along the mountain paths, carrying our packed lunches and a spare change on our backs. I never saw any large wild animals but we always knew they were around. Jackals were common and the watchmen often said they saw leopards at night. The slopes were always green with trees and we knew just where to go for fruits such as apples, pears, plums and juicy berries. We never had to carry water, the streams were always pure. In those days we never really thought about ‘birdwatching’ as such, but the variety of birds around us was amazing. When I returned to Simla some years after I finished school, my heart sank. Someone had cut valleys and valleys of trees. Where first there had been green I saw ugly patches of brown. How I hated the people who had cut the trees down.

The Himalayan mountains are very important for all Indians. Apart from keeping out the freezing, cold winds from the north they are also an important source of fresh water for the plains. Our rivers, the Ganga, Indus and the Brahmaputra all depend on the Himalayas for their water. By cutting the trees down so ruthlessly those men not only deprived birds and animals of their homes and cover, they also caused the soil to become loose. The streams, which were once sparkling clear, are now muddy. And landslides in which property and lives are lost have become more common.

Sarus Cranes

Nayan Khanolkar
Sanctuary Photolibrary

The birds and animals of the mountains are very hardy. Snow leopards, bears and wolves move lower down in winter when it snows, following the birds, deer and wild sheep on which they prey. Some birds fly all the way down to the plains to spend the winter. This seasonal movement is called migration.

Sitting in Bharatpur National Park one misty winter morning I saw a small flock of pure white Siberian cranes. They had flown over the Himalayas, all the way from Russia to rest and feed here. With the adult birds were some young ones less than a year old.

I wondered how baby cranes found the strength to fly over 5,000 miles to get to Bharatpur. I also wondered how these birds (there were less than 40 in the flock) found their way to this small swampy area. They often flew over thick clouds, so it’s not as though they could ’see’ where they were going. What about at night? Did they sleep while flying? Anyone who is curious about Nature will find that every answer leads to still more questions. We humans know so much more about life on Earth today than our forefathers knew but there is still so much more to discover. And our teachers are the countless insects, birds and animals that exist everywhere.