Naturalists who visited the place recently said nearly 50,000 birds, including northern pintail, godwit and greater flamingos, besides the common sandpipers, and red and green shanks, have been sighted.

T. Murugavel of Environment Monitoring and Action Initiating (EMAI) said though the lake is huge, the movement of birds from one place to another is mainly based on tidal flow and food availability.

Annamalaicheri, Arambakkam and SHAR are some of the ideal places for watching the winged visitors, he said.

Though Pulicat Lake satisfies all the norms for being recognised as a Ramsar Site, for some reasons it is yet to get this credit, said Mr. Murugavel.

The anthropogenic pressures are also choking the lake. The agricultural land just opposite Kudri, a fresh water tank, is getting converted into housing plots. The Kudri tank itself is an important ecosystem which attracts several bird species, he said.

Streaked weaver, coot and purple moorhen are some of the resident birds that breed here. Conversion of land for real-estate purposes should be stopped and at least 10 km from the fringes of the lake should be declared a no-development zone and also, an ecologically sensitive one, said Mr. Murugavel.

Similarly, incidents of poaching need to be stopped. He said drying up of the northern part and clogging of the river mouth in the south were worrying the naturalists.

K.V. Sudhakar, president of Madras Naturalists’ Society, endorses the view the birding season at Pulicat this year is good.

“About 10 years ago, we would sight more than 100 species of birds and flamingos in the thousands. But, now just about 80 species are sighted of which 40 are migrants. The number of birds visiting the lake has come down due to increased human intervention,” he said.