Coimbatore : In what could be the first ever documented sighting of the Whinchat (Saxicola rubetr), the four member team that went on a 90-days bird expedition trip across the country have photo documented the bird in India, when they spotted one in the National Chambal Sanctuary, located at the trip point of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Members of the Seek-2019 expedition, become the first people to spot and photo document the Whinchat in India
Coimbatore : In what could be the first ever documented sighting of the Whinchat (Saxicola rubetr), the four member team that went on a 90-days bird expedition trip across the country have photo documented the bird in India, when they spotted one in the National Chambal Sanctuary, located at the trip point of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
The bird was spotted along with a few stone chats, which commonly visit the country during winter and initially thought of as one among them. However, while checking the pictures, the significant white stripe above the eye and buff under parts of the bird revealed the rare visitor.
“I saw the bird perch close by and viewed it on my binocular. Though I initially thought it was a stonechat, we forgot to check it properly in the heat of the moment. But luckily I clicked a document shot in my camera and it was only later that we found it to be a Whinchat during post expedition analyses,” said R. Mohammed Saleem President of Environment Conservation Group.
The team later checked available bird identification websites including Ebird and found no recorded sighting of the bird anywhere in India. The bird spends its summer in Europe and travels to Central Africa through the Middle East during the winter.
The team consisting of R. Mohammed Saleem, P.A. Azeez, Former Director of Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Ravi Rishi, physician and wildlife enthusiast and Thillai Makadhan, Wildlife Photographer, were also lucky to spot few rare birds other than the Whinchat.
“During our trip to Gujarat, we wanted to see the Grey Hypocolius (Hypocolius ampelinus), another rare bird. We waited for long hours and just when we thought we were unlucky, a Grey Hypocolius perched on a tree at Kotteshwar, the Western Most Point of the country,” said Saleem.
Saleem added that the bird spends only two to three weeks in India adding that it could be found only in one particular village in the country.
The sighting was again confirmed during verifying the photographs the team had taken during the trip. The team also spotted other rare birds like Common ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) in Gujarat, the endangered White Winged Duck (Asarcornis scutulata) and the critically endangered Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) in the forest of Assam.
The team that began their expedition on January 12th in Coimbatore met more than 2000 students, foresters, academicians, wildlife photographers, conservationists and general public and created awareness among them during their 22,000 km expedition.
The expedition was sponsored by Zeiss, Coimbatore City Round table 31, N. Mahalingam and Companty, MapmyIndia, Pricol , Twinbirds and Sulocahana Mills.