noida fewer species of winter migratory birds have arrived so far this year at the okhla sanctuary where the waterbody is almost dry because of repair works being carried out in the barragemigratory birds from faraway countries start arriving at okhla by the end of september or early october almost at the end of november first week not many varieties of migratory birds have been spotted at the sanctuary so far among the major reasons experts pointed out was that the wetland has been dry since october 18 for repair work at the barragetk roy an ecologist and conservationist said he had spotted only around 10 species of longdistant winter migratory birds in the second week of october some of them were the northern shoveler northern pintail gadwal common pochard blackheaded gull pied avocet eurasian spoonbill blacktailed godwit and so onsome local migratory species such as asian openbill blacknecked stork and whiskered terns stayed at the muddy ditches for a few days and left within october itself in the absence of enough watera few longdistance species that were spotted recently included the northern shoveler ruddy shelduck great cormorant brownheaded and blackheaded gulls pied avocet and so on these were spotted in the middle of the sanctuary along the yamunaapart from water birds a few migratory species of terrestrial birds have also been spotted in the sanctuary of late they include the greyheaded canary flycatcher eurasian hobby and two species of warblersaccording to roy about 50 to 70 species of winter migratory water birds usually visit the sanctuary during this time of the year the numbers usually in thousands depend on the condition of the wetlandaccording to the asian waterbird census awc 11622 birds of 63 species were recorded in 2018 12212 birds of 63 species in 2019 8776 birds of 62 species in 2020 8068 birds of 73 species in 2021 and 9243 birds of 47 species in 2022wing commander ns khaira retired a birder admitted that the water level was too low for the birds to stay for long the wetland is dry so many birds have skipped the sanctuary so far but even when there is water there is the problem of hyacinth if the water level is low every year birds will continue to skip the sanctuary like this he saidpramod shrivastava the divisional forest officer dfo in noida said the irrigation department was conducting repair work at the barrage which had hit the water levelan official of the irrigation department said the repair work is an annual exercise and it is important the supply of water will be resumed by november 15spread across 4sqkm around the yamuna the okhla bird sanctuary is part of the central asian flyway and was notified as a bird sanctuary in 1990 it is also an iba important bird area site