Rare Baikal teal photographed at Krishnakunj

AHMEDABAD: A

rare bird

species, Baikal teal, was spotted in the Krishnakunj lake at Victoria Park in Bhavnagar. There has been no official photographic record of a sighting of this bird in the state since 1947.

The bird is a migrant to India and is native to China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and the Russian Federation. The bird was first spotted by Veer Vaibhav Mishra, naturalist at Centre for Desert and Ocean, Kutch . “I was as usual taking photographs of birds when I saw an unusual bird among a lot of common teals. I watched closely and found that this was a species which not found in the state.”

There have been isolated reports from north Gujarat, but this is the first such documented sighting with photographs in Saurashtra.

Uday Vora, chief conservator of forests, who has been active in bird censuses says, “A Baikal teal with photographic evidence is a rare sighting. I remember during an environment impact assessment study in Nalsarovar in 1992, I has spotted the bird and even mentioned in my report, but there was no photographic evidence. We do not documented record of this species since the formation of the state.”

The Baikal teal, also called the bimaculate duck or squawk duck, is a dabbling duck which breeds in eastern Russia and winters in East Asia. Scientifically known as Sibirionetta formosa, it breeds in eastern Siberia, Russia and occurs on passage in Mongolia and North Korea. It winters mainly in Japan and South Korea, which now holds the majority of the wintering population, and mainland China. It is a rare winter visitor to Taiwan and Hong Kong.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Baikal teals are 39-43cm small dabbling ducks with a striking head pattern. Males have a complex buff, green, white and black head pattern, dark-spotted pinkish breast, grey flanks, black undertail-coverts and long chestnut, black and whitish scapulars. The female has isolated, round, pale loral spots and broken supercilium. It nests in open tussock meadows near water. It winters it nests on freshwater lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and farmland, often roosting on water during the day and feeding in fields at the night. It feeds on seeds and grain, water snails, algae and other water plants.