Mandar Nature Club, a Bhagalpur-based NGO backed by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, England, and the department of forests and environment are working to protect Greater adjutant chicks.

People in remote areas like Kadwa diara and Khairpur panchayat in Bhagalpur have also come forward to protect the endangered species in their breeding season.

On Tuesday, a team of experts and veterinary doctors applied plaster on the broken wing of a Greater Adjutant at the rescue-cum-rehabilitation centre at Sundarvan, a protected forest area inside Bhagalpur town. The bird had been brought here from Naugachia on February 24.

According to Indian Bird Conservation Network state coordinator Arvind Mishra, nets were being fixed, with help from residents, under 40 big trees in diara areas where Greater Adjutant nests were found. "Since it is breeding time for the birds, we are keeping a close watch. Some hatchlings fell on the nets from the nests and the parent birds accepted them back when we relocated them to the nests," he said.

Earlier, in November 2014, makeshift shelters with bamboo fences and nets had come up to shield chicks that fall from nests at places like Ashramtola in Kosi diara.

"Initially they were, too, weak to fly but we provided them foods like fishes. Some of the chicks flew awaybut three others could not fly. One had fractured its wings after the fall from the nest," Mishra said.

He said the injured chick was being treated by government veterinary doctors like Brijmohan Mahato, Pappu Ram and a bird expert at Naugachia, Nagina Roy, who had earlier bandaged broken parts of a bird's wing at the rescue-cum-rehabilitation centre in Naugachia. "Because of some technical problems, the centre was shifted from Naugachia to Sundarvan in Bhagalpur recently. The injured birds and two other chicks were also shifted here. Bandages fixed on the bird's wing got dislocated, so we decided to put plaster," said government veterinary surgeon G.K. Jha. Veterinarians like Brijmohan Mahato, Rajiv Kumar Lal and Mandar Nature Club members assisted them.

Bhagalpur forest division forester Birendar Kumar Pathak said the birds are recovering at the rescue-cum-rehabilitation centre in Sundarvan.

He said noted mirshekari (falconer) Akhtar Hussain from Majhol has been assigned to look after the birds. Once the little ones are cured, they would be release in natural habitat.