Indian skimmers’ Sabarmati cruise: Over 200 counted in rare sighting

AHMEDABAD: Birders are flying high on a recent rare sighting, that happened by chance. Two large flocks of Indian skimmers — each over a hundred in number — were sighted near the Sabarmati river’s estuarine region in the Gulf of Khambhat.

This is big news for Gujarat as this is the first time in 35 years that bird watchers or ornithologists in the state have recorded such large congregations of this fishing bird listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The 1989 sighting was 190 birds at Khijadiya.

“We hit a jackpot,” said Anurag Sagar, who, along with fellow bird enthusiasts Jigish Parikh and Jignyasu Bakshi, saw the birds during the exercise, Wings Birds of India conducted statewide on Sunday.

Overall, the exercise recorded 355 bird species, a rise from 346 in 2024; the 2023 count had recorded 333 species across Gujarat. “The skimmers’ sighting came as a major surprise,” Sagar added, narrating the lead-up to the big moment. “Our group was taking photographs in the Gulf of Khambhat, with focus on common cranes.”
The treasure was hidden in plain sight and did not reveal itself until the team examined their pictures closely. “Behind the cranes were two flocks of Indian Skimmers, over 200 birds at the same place at the same time. I think this was possibly a rare sighting,” he said.

The fishing bird gets its name from its hunting style — flying low, with its beak wide open, skimming the water’s surface for prey. It is widely seen on large, sandy, lowland rivers, around lakes and adjacent marshes. According to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), this riverine species has seen its numbers decline, with degradation of rivers due to exploitation, water transport and pollution reducing its reproductive and foraging success.

Uday Vora, former chief conservator of forests and the coordinator of the exercise, said, “In the past, we had recorded isolated groups of 40-odd birds in Bhavnagar or in Khijadiya. But this count in the Gulf of Khambhat is the largest so far. They were more than 200 in number, and the figure of 200 cited on the eBird portal is a conservative figure.”

He said, “This is the largest count recorded in the past 35 years. In 1989, birders recorded 190 skimmers at Khijadiya, which was till this sighting, the highest in the state. In recent past, skimmers were seen in groups of 25 and 45 in Bhavnagar in two different sightin.