Warblers: India
Warbler, large-billed reed
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Warbler, largebilled reed By ADD THE AUTHOR NAME, ADD THE DATE. |
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‘Extinct’ bird rediscovered in Afghanistan’s mountains
Afghanistan’s fledging conservation agency moved on Sunday to protect one of the world’s rarest birds after the species wasrediscovered in the war-ravaged country’s northeast. The remote Pamir Mountains are the only known breeding area of the largebilled reed warbler, a species so elusive that it had been documented only twice before in more than a century.
A researcher with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society stumbled upon the tiny bird in 2008 and taped its distinctive song. Later, a research teamcaught and released 20 of the birds — the largest number ever recorded.
Afghanistan’s National Environment Protection Agency added the large-billed reed warbler to its list of protected species.
Warbler
2023: sighting in Bhondsi
Kushagra Dixit, Sep 26, 2023: The Times of India
NEW DELHI: In a first, a yellow-browed warbler, which is a forest songbird, has been spotted in NCR at a time the migratory season is around the corner.
Major General Arvind Yadav and Amit Sharma, two birders, documented its presence in the region on September 23 as the bird perched on a Siris tree at Bhondsi in Gurgaon. The warbler is a tiny bird, hard to recognise and spot.
The sighting has now become a matter of exploration for the region's birders, especially around Bhondsi Nature Park, which has a conducive environment for wild birds.This warbler is migratory and spends the winter mainly in tropical South and Southeast Asia. Its presence depicts a subtle balance in the region's ecology.
As birders in Delhi-NCR gear up to welcome water, wader and terrestrial birds, along with several avian migrants that make a pit stop around Delhi before flying to their destination southwards, the spotting of the little warbler has come as a treat for them.
The bird has vibrant plumage and chirps melodiously or warbles. It belongs to the Phylloscopidae family to which the tiny leaf warbler also belongs. The birds breed in the east Palearctic region.
"This is the first observation of this migrant avian in and around NCR. We spotted it on Saturday, September 23, at Bhondsi Nature Park in Gurgaon. We observed this warbler feeding in a Siris tree (Albizia lebbeck) with some very quick movements. At first glimpse, it looked like a Hume's leaf warbler, a close associate, but it was its call and some distinctive features which confirmed its identity. I heard him closely in North East last season. Identifying warblers is a complex process as the plumage and identity markers change rapidly during this season. The call actually plays a pivotal role. The rest was help from senior birders of NCR," Major General Yadav said.
He added that like many other leaf warblers, it has overall greenish upper parts and white under parts with prominent double wing bars formed by white tips on the wing covert feathers, yellow-margined tertial feathers and a long creamy supercilium.
"The bird is not shy, but its arboreal lifestyle makes it difficult to spot it. It is almost constantly in motion. Its song is a high-pitched medley of whistles. The call is piercing, often disyllabic 'tseeweest', strikingly loud for the bird's small size," Sharma said.
Birder Janardhan said the species has been earlier sighted along the Himalayan foothills east of Dehradun in the same season. The nearest to Delhi was near Aligarh in October 2020, according to Ebird records.
"It may not be a first visit by this bird to the area, but the small size, olive plumage, habit of feeding at the top canopy, dynamic movements and similarity to the Hume's leaf warbler would have allowed it to get away from birders' eyes and cameras. Or this unusual visitor to urban landscape might be a vagrant due to changed weather patterns," Gaurav Yadav, a young birder part of the birders' team which Major General Yadav and Sharma belong to, said.
