Dehradun, Returning to Aasan was like a second homecoming. Here in 2005 for an assignment and a decade and half later I was back again, to relive the magic of the serene wetlands teeming with migratory birds.
Sprawled over 1 & a half km at the foothills of Chakrata range this is India’s first Wetland Conservation Reserve. There is this constant buzzing of birds and on close inspection one finds the rarest of birds at the Aasan barrage.
Over the years, the lake has become the winter stopover for about 150 species of migratory birds which start arriving here from October every year.
For serious birders, an experience with one particular species may become forever memorable. And for me a pair of the endangered Pallas Fish Eagle or the Pallas sea eagle or band-tailed fish eagle has been a personal favourite.
When I first came here, I remember the magnificent pair nesting on top of a palash or flame-in-the-forest tree. The pair waltzed in perfect harmony against the blue winter sky weaving a magic spell, and I was hooked for life!
Eagerly I enquire about them. They point out to the solitary male on a patchy bush thrush wetland, soaking in the sun. On asking about his partner, the locals fill me in, “Two years ago, the female passed away and since then the male has left his nest and made one of these patchy wetlands his home.”
At 2 feet tall he is as handsome as before but now a lonely sight. He hasn’t left the Aasan since his mate passed away. In spring when it warms up, he goes off to the nearby mountains, but with no other Pallas Eagle in the area his search for company looks grim.
As I leave, the lines of the poet Thomas Gray ring in my ears:
‘For many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness in the desert air.’
