Jagdish, a farmer and seasonal chowkidar (guard) from Jaitpur village in Madhya Pradesh, joined a local effort to protect Indian skimmer nests along the Chambal River. Working with a Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) project, he and other villagers watched sandbar nesting sites, counted nests and chicks, and discouraged some animals from reaching them. The 2021 account describes a small pilot—not proof that nest guarding alone can reverse the species’ decline.
Why Indian skimmer nests are exposed to danger
Indian skimmers (Rynchops albicollis) lay eggs on open sandbars and mid-river islands. Those bare, low-lying places offer nesting habitat, but they also leave nests vulnerable to changes in river conditions and to animals and people moving across the sand. In its 2021 report on the Chambal project, Mongabay India described the nesting season as running from mid- or late March through June.
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When water levels fall, a sandbar can become connected to the riverbank. Dogs and cattle may then reach nests that were surrounded by water; cattle can trample them. The report also identified jackals, wildcats and sand mining as threats. India Today’s 2026 profile likewise noted that shifting water flow, predators and wandering cattle make sandbar nests vulnerable. The available accounts establish these as risks, not the relative contribution of each to nest loss.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The Chambal landscape lies near the Madhya Pradesh–Rajasthan border and supports skimmers alongside other wildlife. Mongabay India reported in 2021 that India was then the only country known to have a breeding population of Indian skimmers, and cited an overall estimate of 2,000–3,000 birds. That is a historical estimate from the article, not a current census.
What Jagdish and the other nest guardians did
Jagdish’s connection to the river was rooted in daily life and work. “The river is an integral part of my life,” he told Mongabay India. After working as a farmer and seasonal guard, he took part in the BNHS Nest Guardian project, which began on a small scale in 2019. Local people received basic training as field assistants.
Guardians visited islands early in the morning to count nests and chicks and note general conditions. They discouraged cattle, dogs and jackals from disturbing nesting areas, while leaving natural predators such as raptors alone. The work paired local familiarity with the river landscape with field observations that could contribute to research; guardians also received basic payment.
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Jagdish was not the only villager involved. Lakhan Gurjar described keeping watch by day and night during the critical nesting period, carrying a torch at night and using natural materials to fence nesting areas. That is one reported guardian’s account of field practice, not a tested recommendation about equipment or fencing.
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Watching nesting sites can help guardians notice threats and keep some animals away from eggs and chicks. It does not, by itself, restore river flow or protect the habitat from broader pressures such as sand mining. The approach also has to distinguish between preventable disturbance and natural ecological processes: in the reported project, guardians did not interfere with raptors.
At the time of Mongabay India’s 2021 report, the effort was a small pilot whose work had been slowed by COVID-19 restrictions. BNHS research biologist and project co-founder Parveen Shaikh said, “The project started on a very small scale but this year we hope to do it properly with control islands and see how efficient it is.” She also cautioned that only a few islands had been tested, so the pilot could not establish the best practice with certainty. The report therefore supports describing the work as a community-based conservation effort under evaluation, not as a proven intervention or a demonstrated cause of population growth.
The project’s wider value was not limited to immediate nest protection: it involved residents in monitoring their local habitat and offered some paid work. Shaikh stressed that the underlying problems require longer-term action: “Solving the core issue is going to be a long term thing and needs policy intervention.”
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What later reports say about skimmers in the Chambal
Later coverage has described encouraging local figures, but the numbers need to be kept distinct and attributed to the sources that reported them. India Today’s 2026 search-result summary cited nest survival rising from 14% to over 25%, and a local population rising from about 400 birds in 2017 to nearly 1,000. The underlying study and the relevant full passages were not available in that profile’s reviewed text, so those figures should be treated as secondary reporting, not as independently verified results of Jagdish’s work.
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A Sanctuary Nature Foundation profile search result reported about 400 nesting birds in 2017 and more than 800 in 2024. That is another dated, secondary-source nesting count; it is not directly interchangeable with a range-wide population estimate or with India Today’s later local figure. The sources available here do not establish a current official population census, the present scale of the Nest Guardian project, or how much any reported change can be attributed to nest guarding.
Why habitat protection remains part of the answer
Mongabay India’s 2021 article described sand mining as a major habitat concern and reported that the Supreme Court had banned sand mining in the Chambal in 2016. It also cited a forest official discussing illegal mining and risks to staff. That historical report does not establish the current enforcement status of the ban.
BNHS official Basavaraj S Annigeri, then Chief Conservator of Forest for Gwalior, said, “Including community in conservation is a great idea.” Community participation can make monitoring more locally grounded, but the account also points to the limits of volunteer- and guard-level action: nest watches address immediate disturbance, while habitat pressures and river conditions require broader protection and policy responses.
Quick Recap
Sources
- Mongabay India, “Chowkidar turns conservationist for winged friends in Chambal” (February 1, 2021).
- India Today, “Protecting the skimmer | Parveen Shaikh, 37, Conservation scientist, avian ecologist, BNHS, Mumbai” (updated August 16, 2026; issue August 24, 2026).
- Sanctuary Nature Foundation, “Parveen Shaikh”.
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