By Dr Jayan Thomas

Dr Jayan Thomas is an ophthalmologist by profession; but early in the morning and on Sundays, he is an inquisitive birdwatcher and photographer. Watching a Blue-tailed Bee-eater catch its prey and smash it against a wire before swallowing the bee sparked his curiosity about birds and their behaviour. He lives in Cannanore, Kerala, near the ocean and is President of the Cannanore Ophthalmological Society.

It was Sunday the 30th of October 2011, and myself and Mr. PC Rajeevan had decided to go to a place called Ezhome about 23 Km from Cannanore (Kannur), on the coast of northern Kerala. I woke up at 5 AM and started my journey to Ezhome by 5.30 AM. Rajeevan was at Ezhome waiting for me and after a cup of hot roadside café tea we were on to a slow birding walk, with binos, camera and an umbrella, as it was drizzling. The first bird to be seen was a Purple Heron, then a Blue-tailed Bee-eater and so on. After 2 hours of birding we counted about 40 species and were about to call it a day, when we decided instead to first go to Madaipara, since it is close to Ezhome. We reached Madaipara just before noon, and so bird activity was very low. Suddenly Mr. Rajeevan spotted a group of birds across the road and we went to check them out. There were about 200 Lesser Sand Plovers feeding on a burned patch of grass, and some bathing in rock pools. Among these Lesser Sand Plovers was a smaller and slimmer bird with yellow legs and pearly edged wings. What could this be? We were intrigued.

With caution we approached the bird and found to our surprise that it was quite unusual. Since the bird was feeding and walking around we had ample time to take some decent photos. During flight the upper parts appeared uniform, with no prominent wing pattern. Driving back home we discussed the possibilities of a new species being sighted in Kerala.

We whittled down our “differential diagnosis” of the bird to three species:
1. Buff-breasted Sandpiper.
2. Long-toed Stint
3. Reeve (Female Ruff)

Long-toed Stint is almost similar to this new bird, but the stint has prominent facial markings. Reeve was a possibility, but this new bird did not have a post-ocular stripe. A post-ocular stripe is essential for the bird to have been a Reeve. Moreover this bird was substantially smaller in size than a Reeve. (For a visual estimate of size see the photos below, which have this bird together with Lesser Sand Plovers.)

Now the only other possibility was the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, a New World bird. Yes, this bird looked like the Buff-breasted Sandpiper in size and all other features. This bird was about 19 cm with a plain face, an eye-ring , streaked crown and yellow legs. The picture of the bird was sent all around the world by MigrantWatch and others. We are thankful to Praveen J., Sashikumar, Aasheesh Pittie, Bill Harvey, Rex De-Silva and Krys Kazmierczak for having identified the bird as the Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis) breeds in the Arctic tundra of North America and is a long distance migrant to South America, mainly Argentina. The Canadian wildlife service estimates that there are only about 15,000 birds in the world and hence it is classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. This bird which came to Madaipara could have been lost: instead of going to Argentina, this bird might have been wind-blown from the Great Plains Flyway of North America and landed up in India. Our sighting appears to be only the third of this species from South Asia.

Madaipara is a laterite flat hillock near the Ezhimala Naval Academy. On one side of Madaipara is the Arabian sea and the other side a mountain range of seven small hills (Ezhimala in Malayalam means seven hills). Sandwiched between the sea and the seven hills is a long meandering river. Madaipara is basically a flat land with few trees and shrubs and a lot of weeds. The vegetation is sometimes set on fire, and these spots are ideal for birds which come in search of insects. There are occasional rock puddles too on the hillock up to Spring. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper was seen here for 4 days. Of these, I sighted it on two different days and my birding pal Rajeevan sighted it on all 4 days.

Finding a rare bird like this is one of the dreams of the serious birder. Locating and identifying a species that is least expected is a great challenge and great thrill. You have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself for this. Reporting a rare bird carries a lot of responsibility. It becomes part of science. If you believe that you have seen a rare bird, study it carefully, take photos, video if possible and note the circumstances of the sighting. Then as soon as possible alert other birders.

You can see Dr Jayan Thomas’s MigrantWatch sightings and photos here.

More about the Buff-breasted Sandpiper from Wikipedia and from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

By Nimesh Ved
Nimesh Ved works in conservation education across different segments of society in south Mizoram. While doing so, he finds himself lucky to expand his awareness and appreciation of wildlife in north-eastern India.

Saiha, at the southern tip of Mizoram, has offered me many sightings of avian migrants during my three years of working here as the head of the Samrakshan Trust’s conservation education efforts. A sighting of the Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus was one of my first contributions to the MigrantWatch database last year; and this year too they came back to Saiha to fill my winter months with some memorable sights.

My first sighting of kestrels in the current season was when we saw two of them take small dives in mid-air, turning (almost!) on their sides and catching insects; this spectacle went on for 15 min. It was fun to see small insects disappear amidst this ‘dance’ of the kestrels; as I write I recall Kipling’s eloquent narrative of the ‘Dance of Elephants’ in his ‘Toomai of the Elephants’. We just sat there at our base-camp and soaked in this sight.

On later occasions, we have heard their high-pitched calls at about 6 in the morning, as if chastising us for not making an early start to the day.

One evening at about 4 pm we saw about 20 to 25 Kestrels flying in circles about 30 feet above the ground. There was a fire in the valley and they were presumably enjoying feeding on the insects that fled the fire. It was mesmerising to see the kestrels moving around in joy like children coming out of school. This also led me to look up literature on the Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni that I thought was a part of that day’s excitement.

Confusions on raptors has often led me to Rishad Naoroji’s book Birds of Prey of the Indian Sub-continent and here I found some of the day’s observations to be in consonance with his notes on the Lesser Kestrel - “Essentially insectivorous, highly social and flocking species”; “Taking prey (mostly insects) more often on the wing than the Common Kestrel, otherwise hunts similarly but mostly in small groups or large loose flocks, 10 m to 15 m above the ground”; “In Africa catches insects disturbed by grass fires in the air”. Next I checked up the web to confirm calls of the Common Kestrel and Lesser Kestrel. While most of the calls I had noticed belong to the Common Kestrel, the call I had heard today (15 Nov 2010, 1:45pm) was that of the Lesser Kestrel, which has a lower-pitched and harsher voice.

How exciting to confirm that the rare Lesser Kestrel visits Saiha! It would be wonderful to know where they come from and how long they spend here.

Some notes on Kestrels from the literature
About Indian Birds by Salim Ali and Laeeq Futehally ~ ‘There is only one bird which can really remain quite stationary, in the air, even when its wings do not move, and that is the kestrel.’
A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Mizoram by Anwaruddin Choudhury ~ Common Kestrel is a common winter visitor to Mizoram.

Relevant Links
BirdLife International’s summary sheets on Common Kestrel and Lesser Kestrel
Calls of Common Kestrel and Lesser Kestrel
MigrantWatch data on Common Kestrel and Lesser Kestrel.

Nimesh Ved blogs here. He can be contacted at nimesh.ved [at] gmail.com.

The long hop: a one-legged bird returns to its winter home
By Meghna Krishnadas

The hero of our story is a courageous Grey Wagtail that was first spotted in the temple township of Biligiri Ranganaswamy Betta within the BRT (Biligiri Ranganaswamy Temple) Wildlife Sanctuary, some 200 km south of Bangalore.

It was noticed by TS Ganesh, a resident at BR Hills for twenty years. Ganesh lives on his farm and coffee estate, where he has been observing and photographing the birds that visit his home. One particular individual caught his attention in 2007, when migratory birds first began to arrive for the winter. Among the birds in his backyard, he noticed a Grey Wagtail with just one leg! Surprised, Ganesh photographed the bird. It was one of a pair of Grey Wagtails that remained in his garden until the following May when both went missing, presumably having headed back northwards to Central Asia (C&NE Afghanistan and NW Pakistan) to their summer home to breed.

This appeared to be the end of the story. Migration is a difficult business for any bird, let alone one with as serious a handicap as a missing leg! Birds migrate back and forth from their breeding to their non-breeding lands, tracking warm weather and food supplies. Some birds are champion migrants, like the Bar-headed Geese that travel at astoundingly high elevations over the Himalayas, under conditions of very low oxygen. However, these arduous journeys are very energy-intensive and the weak often do not survive. Migration requires the bird to be at its fittest in order to undertake the long voyage, so Ganesh didn’t expect to ever see his one-legged wagtail again.

Imagine his surprise and awe, then, when the one-legged wagtail reappeared in Ganesh’s garden in October 2008!

When Ganesh heard of the MigrantWatch project he wrote to them about this remarkable individual. MigrantWatch encourages birdwatchers, naturalists and any interested person to document the arrival and departure dates of migratory bird species that visit India during the winter. The idea is that citizens’ contributions will help evaluate the effects that global warming might have on the timing of bird migration.

This little episode illustrates how fascinating it can be to observe the natural world. The resilience of this little one-legged bird, which weighs just above 15 grams, but still managed to make at least two migration journeys of 1500-2000 km each is something we can only wonder at.

Will our hero survive yet another year and two more long journeys to return to Ganesh’s farm at BR Hills? We shall know the answer in a few months, and all of us, Ganesh included are keeping our fingers crossed!