2022

The Indus Flyway is the migratory route for Lessor flamingos and hundreds of other bird species, from Siberia, across several mountain ranges, to the Indian Sub-Continent. They would arrive in Karachi in the winter months, like family and friends from abroad. Startlingly flamboyant, almost white on arrival, pink on departure, wallowing around the mangroves near Native Jetty, and around what is now the Mai Kolachi road. Over the years, the water bodies shrank, wetlands were polluted, the birds mercilessly trapped, and their sanctuary violated by development. Without alternative refuge, the Lessor flamingo population now calls other places home.