“It’s good that we stopped. We wanted to protect that bird,” says Prashanth Reddy. He is the manager of a quarry at Yenakathala in Vikarabad near Hyderabad that has stopped operations to allow five eggs laid by a rock eagle owl, in one of the nooks of the quarry’s stone rocks, to hatch.
It will take 30-odd days, and each day the miner is writing off Rs 1.2 lakh.
The rock eagle owl is a Schedule I animal, on the endangered list. Adept at camouflage, it is hard to spot. It’s harder still to spot its nest.
So Manoj Kumar Vittapu, the Telangana Photographic Society joint secretary, and friend and photographer Shreeniwas Kandukuree knew how lucky they were when they discovered both by chance, while on a photography trip through the stone quarry at Yenakathala.
“When we saw the nest first, the bird was perched on its edge, hiding her eggs from sight,” says Vittapu. Also hanging precariously over the nest was the long arm of a JCB deployed at the site. “One more swipe, and the nest would have disappeared.”
Vittapu says they immediately rushed to the manager of the quarry. “We said this bird needs protection, the same as tigers. They were quick to understand and stop the work.”
The rock eagle owl or Indian eagle-owl (Bubo bengalensis), also called the Bengal eagle-owl, is a large-horned owl species native to hilly scrub forests in India. It is usually brown and grey in colour, with a white throat patch that has black stripes. In the black market, poachers can make Rs 35-40 lakh per bird. While its exact numbers in India are not known, globally, its population is said to be “decreasing”, with the rock eagle owl featured in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.
Story continues below this ad
However, the quarry owner, Laxma Reddy, needed some more convincing, as he started at losses in the range of Rs 35 lakh despite all the required permits to mine and crush on revenue land.
Vittapu and Kundakuree urged Principal Chief Conservator of Forests C Suvarna to intervene, who called Laxma Reddy and asked him to spare the site where the bird was perched. “We also sent two forest officials to the site to ensure that the bird stayed protected,” says G Gnaneshwar, Vikarabad District Forest Officer.
The site had been carefully selected for nesting by the bird because of the long grassy patch next to it, Gnaneshwar explains. “The grass when grown provides perfect camouflage. This owl was spotted on a cliff because it prefers nesting in rock crevices.”
Not only has quarrying been halted at the site, visitors to the area have also been restricted to ensure that the owl’s eggs are not disturbed before they hatch. “No one, including photographers, is allowed because we want the owl to have a peaceful incubation space. Till the eggs hatch and the hatchlings fly away, we will restrict entry of visitors and quarry machines,” says Gnaneshwar.
Story continues below this ad
The eggs are estimated to have been two weeks old when Vittapu and Kandukuree found them. “The usual incubation period for the eggs is six to eight weeks,” says Gnaneshwar.
Prashanth Reddy says they had enquired if the nest could be relocated by experts. But were told that the rock eagle bird would abandon the nest if touched by humans. Besides, the nest was located precariously in the nook of a rock cliff. “Had we moved it, the eggs could have cracked,” says Gnaneshwar.
Vittapu, who estimates he has seen 20-odd owls during photography tours, but never a nest before, still can’t believe his role in saving five birds. “The rescue was nothing short of a miracle.”
