Critically endangered yellow-breasted bunting sighted for first time in Gujarat’s Nal Sarovar

“We were clicking a flock of red-headed buntings and black-headed buntings when our guide told us to focus on one particular individual. On looking at it closely, he said it was a yellow-breasted bunting and that it was the first record of this bird in Nal Sarovar,” Roopa, a homemaker, told The Indian Express.

Yellow-breasted buntings have been categorised as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to a rapid decline in its population.

“Red-headed and black-headed buntings migrate to India from central Asia during winters. But yellow-breasted buntings are not known to winter in Gujarat. Once can’t say with certainty if the bunting seen in Nal Sarovar migrated with the flock of the buntings of the other two species or it is a vagrant,” Prasad Ganpule, a senior birdwatcher of Gujarat said, adding, “A yellow-breasted bunting was sighted in Pariege lake in 2019. That was the first record of this species in Gujarat and Wednesday’s sighting at Nal Sarovar is only the second in the state.”

Shabbir said that he had been keeping an eye out for yellow bunting, which is a bird of agricultural fields, grasslands and wetlands.

“Every year, flocks of migratory red-headed and black-headed buntings land in Nal Sarovar during winters. They roost in the wetland and forage in nearby paddy fields where crops have already been harvested. Senior birdwatchers had been telling me that Nal Sarovar and surrounding areas make an ideal habitat for yellow-breasted bunting also. Therefore, I was keeping an eye out for this species and had its reference photos on my phone. This particular individual from the flock flew closer to us. I requested my guests to photograph it. When they showed me the photos, I realised it was indeed a yellow-breasted bunting,” said Shabbir.

Roopa, whose husband Ramchandra is a retired Indian Forest Service officer, said that she had seen the bird in Assam around two months ago. “But that bird was not in breeding plumage while the one we saw in Nal Sarovar was a male in his breeding plumage. It was for the first time in my life that I saw this bird in its breeding plumage,” she said.

Bakul Trivedi, president of Bird Conservation Society of Gujarat (BCSG), said the sighting was another testament to the richness of Nal Sarovar as a habitat for a range of birds. “This is only the second record of a bird of this species in Gujarat and that shows how rare it is,” Trivedi said, adding, “Nal Sarovar surprises one on every visit and that shows how rich the habitat is,” he said.

Wildlife biologist Bharat Jethva said the sighting adds one more feather to the cap of Nal Sarovar. “This means an addition to the checklist of bird species in Nal Sarovar. Birdwatchers will be happy to tick and click the species in this important wetland of Gujarat,” said Jethva.