Early Bird and the Rainmatter Foundation have announced five bird walks, led by naturalists, across India on June 10. The walks, to be held in Agartala, Dehradun, Mysore, Panjim, and Tirupati early in the morning, are part of the Rainmatter Foundation’s Walking Lightly campaign, being observed throughout the month of June to mark World Environment Day.

The bird walks are being organised in collaboration with partner organisations.

In Agartala, the venue is Maharaja Bir Bikram College, and the partner organization is Wild Tripura Foundation. The walk there will start at 6.00 am and go on till 8.00 am. Dehradun will have the walk at Gandhi Park, Rajpur Road, in association with Nature Science Initiative, during 6.30 - 8.30 am. Mysore will have the event at the Kukkarahalli Lake, with Dharitri Collective in partnership, during 7.00 - 9.00 am. In Panjim, the walk will be held at the Carambolim Lake in partnership with Arannya Environment Research Organisation during 7.30 - 9.00 am. At Tirupati, the walk will be held at Regional Science Center, in association with the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati, from 6.30 am to 8.30 am.

These walks are designed for children between 9 and 13 years of age and go beyond mere identification of birds. The walks will look at topics such as bird habitat and behaviour as well as include games and activities for children to provide them a holistic understanding of birds. The children will be guided by naturalists throughout the walk. Early Bird has been organising similar walks in Bengaluru once a month and has covered different aspects of birds and birdwatching in these walks using games and creative activities.

For registrations for the walks: https://bit.ly/3CbrMSK

The previous editions of walks have elicited enthusiastic response from the participants. A youngster, who participated in the Birdy Conversations walk at Cubbon Park, said, “I learnt new things about how to connect the relation between a bird and its habitat.” An accompanying parent at the same event had this to say: “The bird walk and the online sessions, quizzes are all awesome. My son loves to attend them. Looking forward to more sessions and bird walks like these.”

Early Bird is a learning programme to bring children closer to birds and nature. The programme has impacted more than 3 lakh children over the course of its 8-year existence. This is through the distribution of innovative educational materials on Indian birds, available in 8 Indian languages, besides English. Early Bird is a part of the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), a 25-year-old public charitable trust set up to contribute to the knowledge and conservation of India’s unique wildlife heritage.

Rainmatter Foundation is a non-profit organisation working to plug in the different gaps in the climate puzzle. It is a network of over 65 organisations working in areas like forests, water, soil, farm, food systems, ecology, energy, and transport.