Rare shikra spotted near Pavagadh

Vadodara: They were out for a drive when they spotted a rare bird near Pavagadh nearly a month ago. Avid bird-watcher Kartik Upadhyay stopped his car to take a closer look. And what they saw left them thrilled. A white-feathered female shikra was perched atop a tree near the hill surrounded by dense forests. It was a leucistic bird that had lost the original colour of its feathers. A normal shikra usually has grey/brown colour feathers.“It was a rare spotting. This is only the second time that a leucistic white-coloured shikra has been seen in India and the first ever in Gujarat. The first was spotted at Pench National Park in Madhya Pradesh,” said Devvratsinh Mori, an ornithologist working at Ahmedabad University, who observed the bird several times, along with Upadhyay, Dr Raju Vyas and Mittal Patel.“It was a chance spotting when I was passing from a road near Pavagadh. Shikra is sighted commonly even in urban areas but I had never seen one in white colour,” said Upadhyay, who was the first to spot it. He then took help of Mori, Vyas and Patel to study the bird and its movements further for a month.The leucistic female shikra nested on a tree and was seen flying around with its male partner. It even laid eggs and was spotted feeding its babies by these bird-watchers. “Birds that have unnatural colours rarely survive as they are easily spotted and preyed upon. Leucistic raptors like this shikra are rare and they can survive as they are up in the food-chain,” Mori told TOI.
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