In a first, Gujarat forest department tracks lesser florican’s flight across Gulf of Khambat

‘Unravelling the secrets of lesser florican: a study of their home range and habitat use in Gujarat, India,’ the research paper published in the latest issue of Scientific Reports, one of the journals of Nature family, has recorded the findings.  The paper reports the findings of the study conducted by tagging 11 male lesser floricans (LFs) with solar-powered satellite tags between September 2020 and August 2022 in Gujarat and analysing the generated data and field observations.

The paper reports that two male birds, code-named MFM9 and LFM10, both tagged on August 21, 2022, at the Blackbuck National Park (BNP) in Velavadar in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, flew across the Gulf of Khambhat to reach their wintering grounds in Maharashtra. The Gulf of Khambhat has been historically known as the Gulf of Cambay.

MFM9 took off from coastal Chopada village in Talaja taluka of Bhavnagar November on 18, 2022, and landed at Gadaria, a village southeast of Navsari town in the south Gujarat region after a 125-km long non-stop flight.  Similarly, LFM10 took off from Sanes village on the periphery of the national park on November 26, and landed at Bhadol village in Olad taluka on the southern coast of the gulf, covering 95 km in one flight.

The flight of LFM10 was east of  that of MFM9, and hence, the width of the gulf was narrower. The LFM10 eventually settled in Man taluka of Satara district of Maharashtra. The longest distance covered by these two birds in a single day were 300 km and 260 km respectively, the paper notes.

“Ornithologists, beginning from Salim Ali to Dharmakumarsinhji, had theorised these birds fly south from the peninsular Saurashtra towards peninsular India at the end of their breeding season and then flying north-north-westward from peninsular India for their breeding season. Dharmakumarsinhji of Bhavnagar had even ringed many LFs and recovered a few of them later on. But for the want of scientific data, these were theories and scientists were assuming this is the migration pattern. But this study gives exact locations and even movement paths and thus validates those long-propagated theories assumptions,” Dr Sujit Narwade, assistant director of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), and who has been researching on Great Indian Bustards and LFs of India, said.

Lesser floricans are one of the four species of birds of the bustard family that occur in India. They have been categorised as critically endangered species on the Red List of Threatened Species drawn by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which comprises both government and civil society organisations.

The LF bird population in India was estimated to be around 700 in 2017-18 as per a report of the BNHS. Gujarat and Rajasthan are the only well-known breeding grounds in the country though Narwade said that they do breed at isolated places in Deccan Plateau also.

Their breeding season in Gujarat begins in May-June and goes on through September and hatchlings emerge after 21 days of incubation. Prof Indra Gadhvi, Head of Department of Marine Science and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, says that males are monogamous, and as is common with many other species of ground-nesting birds, the parental care thus becomes the responsibility of females.

The study was led by Mohan Ram, deputy conservator of forests (DCF) of Sasan Wildlife division in Gir forest in Gujarat’s Junagadh, and was guided by principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Nityanand Srivastava and chief conservator of forests Aradhna Sahu and of Junagadh wildlife circle. The research team also included experts like Prof Gadhvi and Devesh Gadhvi, deputy director of Corbett Foundation and a prominent bustard researcher from Gujarat.

The research by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has also established that some lesser floricans, which breed in Rajasthan, fly across eastern Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh for their return journey to their wintering grounds in Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, among other places.

Prof Gadhvi said the telemetry study has also proven that not all males migrate every year. “Save the month of December, I have observed male lesser floricans in Bhavnagar in all other months. This suggests that not all males migrate to peninsular India every year and there could be a variety of reasons for that, including availability of suitable habitat, incapacity to fly due to illness or other reasons,” he said.

When asked if lesser floricans of Kutch and Velavadar could be distinct sub-populations, YV Jhala, former dean of WII and who has conducted research on this species said, “We need more data to say anything conclusively about it but it is possible that the birds which breed in Gujarat and Rajasthan could be interacting with one another in their summer range in southern India.”

Ram said that the study revealed that agro-pastoral lands and inter-state cooperation are also critical to the survival of the LFs.

“These birds live in protected areas only for three to four months of their breeding season and then move to other areas. Live hedges in agricultural land adjoining grasslands provide shelter to these birds and there is a need to encourage farmers to keep such hedges instead of going for wire-fencing. Secondly, inter-state cooperation also becomes important given the migration pattern of these birds,” he said.