Rare Amur Paradise Flycatcher spotted in Khammam

A rare bird Amur Fly Catcher has been spotted and identified for the first time in mainland India.

Sangareddy: A rare bird Amur Fly Catcher has been spotted and identified for the first time in mainland India.

Though the rare bird was photographed during the 350th birdwalk of the Hyderabad Birding Pals (HBP) near Gubbala Mangamma Temple in Kavadigundla Forest Range of Khammam district during March this year, the birders could not identify it as a Amur Fly Catcher.

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While Hari K Patibanda and Karunakanth Bathula managed to click photographs of the bird, the rest of their 50 birding companions managed to have only a glimpse of the bird for a few seconds.

Among these two, Hari K Patibanda had the best shot. However, the birders had uploaded it on ebird.org, a global database for documenting birds, identifying it as the Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher, another rare bird that was identified in the area three years ago.

Experts from neither the State level nor national level, who review the identified birds on the data base time-to-time could not recognise it as a different species. However, an international reviewer of documented birds on ebird, James Eaton from Thailand, recently identified the Kavadigundla bird as a rare Amur Flycatcher.

Since it was never sighted by birders on mainland India except on Andaman Nicobar Islands, it is now considered the first sighting of this bird in mainland India. Hari K Patibanda and Karunakanth Bathula were elated after realising what they did.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Hari said it was an honour to capture the rare bird for the first time on the mainland. He said that the bird would have migrated from the Andamans to the mainland by traveling over 1300 km across the sea. Hari thanked James Eaton for recognising the bird as an Amur Fly Catcher.

Specialty of Kavadigundla Forest Range

Birders have now spotted the Indian Paradise Flycatcher, Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher and Amur Flycatcher in the Kavadigundla forest during the last three years. No birding spot in India has such a rare distinction.

While the Indian Paradise Flycatcher is regularly spotted here, Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher, another rare bird, was spotted a few times here in Kavadigundla three years ago.