Delhi Zoo's 21st Sunday Bird Walk Logs 42 Bird Species

The National Zoological Park (NZP) in New Delhi, better known as the Delhi zoo, held the 21st edition of its 'Sunday Bird Walk @ NZP' on 15 November 2026. The outing ran for three hours, from 7:30 AM to 10:30 AM. The zoo, which works under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, runs the walk to pull ordinary citizens into biodiversity monitoring and wildlife conservation. Bird expert Vineet Kumar guided the group, helped by the zoo's volunteers, and zoo officials walked along and answered questions.

What the walkers recorded

• Birds of 42 species were logged inside the designated area of the zoo.
• More than 600 individual birds were counted over the three hours.
• The Northern Shoveler, a duck whose scientific name is Spatula clypeata, was added to the zoo's bird checklist for the first time.
• Eight people took part, among them students, nature lovers, bird enthusiasts and wildlife photographers.

Why a new name on the checklist matters

A zoo's bird checklist is a running record of which wild species actually live in or pass through its grounds, as against the animals kept on display. The zoo treats the arrival of the Northern Shoveler on that list as a real contribution to the documentation of its avian diversity, and as a reminder that systematic monitoring is what makes conservation decisions possible. Kumar spoke to the group about bird ecology, behaviour and conservation. He pointed out that birds do measurable ecological work: they hold insect numbers down, which is natural pest control, and the mix of species found at a site is read as an indicator of how healthy that ecosystem is. The walk therefore doubled as field training, giving participants hands-on practice in identifying birds and in writing down what they had seen.

How the walks are organised

Each Sunday Bird Walk is deliberately kept small, taking only 20 to 25 participants, so that the teaching stays useful and everyone gets a turn with the expert. Registering beforehand is compulsory and places are given on a first-come, first-served basis. The registration form stays open from Monday to Friday every week, and the link is put up on the official website of the National Zoological Park and on the NZP Saathi mobile application. Exercises of this kind are called citizen science: the zoo gradually builds a long-run picture of its birds using records made by visitors, while people in the capital learn to watch and identify birds properly.