Mumbai’s flamingo season is not going according to script.
The Greater and Lesser Flamingos that have made Thane Creek and Vashi their seasonal home for over two decades are significantly absent this year — and the likely explanation is sitting in the global weather data.
El Niño, the climate phenomenon that has disrupted monsoon patterns and water ecosystems across India this year, has altered the salinity and food availability at Mumbai’s traditional flamingo grounds. The birds — which are extraordinarily particular about habitat conditions — have responded the only way they know how. They’ve moved.
Where to, exactly, is still being pieced together. But multiple independent birdwatcher reports over the past three weeks point to an unusual concentration of flamingo activity near Mulund Hills — an area that, until this season, had not registered on anyone’s flamingo map.
The Mulund Hills region sits at higher elevation than Thane Creek, closer to Sanjay Gandhi National Park’s buffer zones, with access to fresher water sources and significantly lower levels of industrial disturbance. For a bird that selects its habitat based on clean water, open space, and food abundance — it is, in ecological terms, a logical choice.
For Mumbai, it is a surprising one. Keep watching. The flamingos always know something we don’t.
