ISLAMABAD is a unique habitat. It is a meeting place of two diverse extremes of habitats; one from the south and the other from the north. Thanks to this uniqueness, it provides refuge to a multitude of rich plant flora and an abundantly diverse animal fauna.

As part of my MPhil degree, I have to write a dissertation about bird breeding success in Margala Hills National Park. I have seen some birds again in Islamabad which disappeared some 20 years ago in my district, Faisalabad.

Even in the precincts of a small botanical garden of my college, an 80 square feet place, sometimes I can count birds belonging to 10 different species. They chirp, sing, dance and delight the onlookers with their bright colours. However, I feel that their habitat in Islamabad is under rapid degradation. Lots of road expansions, commercial culinaries of great magnitude and installation of lights in the national park itself have led to increased avian mortalities.

Some 15 years ago, I saw a picture on the pages of Dawn. It showed how people in the city of Naples celebrate a bird day. On that particular day, platters full of grains and other avian food are put on roof tops. People try to produce least noise on that day.

Birds come in flocks and feast on food on rooftops, while people sit and relax and watch these marvelous flying machines of nature. If we start celebrating such day in our beloved Islamabad it will create lots of love and awareness about birds.

I hope it will help us to conserve birds and other wildlife as well in Islamabad.

Muhammad Ashtar

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015

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