Dia Mirza Instagram – Sundays are best spent with nature 🌏💚 Last Sunday we took a boat ride into the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary 🦩🌳 with Shahid. Shahid is such an amazing naturalist! He had so much information and stories to share with the kids, making this time in the wild even more wonderful. Imagine thousands of Flamingoes so close to such a dense human population! Thankfully the authorities provide the flamingoes a safe and undisturbed space. And Maharashtra has a special cell for #Mangrove protection 🙏🏻 DYK #ThaneCreek is the longest creek in Asia? The Thane Flamingo Sanctuary has 55% migratory birds 205 bird species. A birdwatchers paradise. Will keep going back now that we have discovered this paradise amidst people. We also spotted: Pied avocet Turns Seaguls Flamingoes [Greater and Lesser] Ibis Spotted eagle Northern shawler Red lapwing Green Sandpiper Red Shank Marsh Sandpiper Black winged stilt Grey heron DYK Flamingoes are able to “run” on water, thanks to their webbed feet, to gain speed before lifting up into the sky!?! Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary is home to two beautiful flamingo species – Greater Flamingo [the bigger species with a pink, black-tipped bill] and Lesser Flamingo [the smaller species with a brown bill]. Lesser flamingos are believed to arrive from Kutch in Gujarat while the Greater variety comes in from Northern and Central Asia, some as far as Siberia and Eurasia. These flamingos migrate out of their breeding grounds to feed on an annual buffet of blue-green algae at Thane creek every year. The migration starts from October and the birds keep coming till March. March is the best time to visit the sanctuary! The kids were stunned by the experience and can’t wait to go back 💚🌏🦩 This is #MondayMotivation to go seek nature 🙃 #ForNature #OneWorld #GenerationRestoration #ForPeopleForPlanet @theiatekchandaney @mayur_mono @vaibhav.rekhi @samairarekhi