Threatened bird species sighted in Rajasthan
A threatened bird species has been spotted in parts of Rajasthan, including Kota, which are not its traditional habitat. Manish Arya, a bird watcher and a treasurer of the Hadauti Naturalist Society (HNS), has sighted bristled grassbird in Bandha Dharampura area of Kota city.
“Sight of bristled grassbird in Kota is surprising since it is a bird of grasslands usually found in Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh,” Arya said.
“I have spotted a pair of bristled grassbirds in Kota which may be breeding as well since the breeding period of this bird stretches from May to September.”
Bristled grassbird falls under the ‘vulnerable’ category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said Manoj Kulshreshtha, a bird expert from Jaipur and a life member of the Bombay Naturalist Society. He sighted bristled grassbird in Sonkhlia area of Ajmer in 2015.
Grasslands in Sonkhlia and Kota could have attracted the birds, he said. These birds move towards peninsular and eastern parts of India in winter, and many breed in northern marshy grasslands in the south of the Himalayas.
“Spotting of grassbirds in Rajasthan shows signs of their breeding in parts of the state,” Kulshreshtha claimed.
Grassbirds, equal to a common babbler in size (6- 7 inches), are seen at the top of grass clumps; they have bristles -short, stiff hair -- between their eyes and beaks which help them protect their eyes while diving in grasslands to pick insects for feed.
“The male bird has a peculiar aerial display; it goes up over a grass top about a metre in a zigzag manner and then comes down as a parachute,” said RS Tomar, secretary of HNS, Kota.
Shrinking of wetlands with tall grass has hit the population of grassbirds. “This bird is habitat-dependent; if marshes are not reclaimed, the birds will face serious threat like the endangered Great Indian Bustard.”