Rare leucistic Great Cormorant spotted at Ameenpur Lake in Hyderabad

A Hyderabad-born Canadian birder spotted a rare leucistic Great Cormorant at Ameenpur Lake near BHEL. The unusual pale bird, found among regular dark cormorants, was documented after verification with birding sources, making it a memorable sighting

Hyderabad: For those who are not familiar with the bird species that can be sighted at Ameenpur Lake near BHEL here, the rare sighting of leucistic Great Cormorants could have been mistaken for one of the regular cormorants normally seen at the lake.

But for Hyderabad-born Canadian avid birder Raghuvamsh Chavali, who flew to India due to a family emergency and still could not resist the temptation to visit the lake to capture images of the regular visitors, it turned out to be a truly memorable experience on Sunday when he spotted the leucistic Great Cormorant. Like a pro, he took time to confirm the rare sighting in India after verifying it with other sources and birder friends across the country.

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“For almost a month, due to personal reasons, I hadn’t travelled or gone out to take photographs with my camera. So when I finally got a chance to go out last Sunday, I wanted to go back to somewhere old — Ameenpur Lake,” Raghuvamsh informed ‘Telangana Today’.

“I wasn’t expecting anything special. Suddenly, I noticed a pale bird near the water from a distance. I didn’t think much of it. In fact, it looked so pale that I thought it was a duck! If it was alone, I might have got my camera out and taken a couple of pictures,” he explained.

“They were regular cormorants. In the middle of them was this incredibly pale bird. This was when it hit me that I should stop and observe the bird. The contrast between the dark cormorants and the pale one was clear enough to see. I have taken pictures of birds for quite a while now, but I had never really seen a cormorant that looked this pale before,” Raghuvamsh said.

“Most of its feathers were almost white, starkly contrasting with the dark cormorants around it. I got curious and started clicking pictures of the bird. As if it wanted me to get a good picture, the bird climbed up on a rock and stretched out both its wings. Seeing this pale cormorant stretching out its wings next to the dark cormorants was something special for me,” he said.

“It reminded me of leucistic Great Cormorants. Sometimes, birds might have reduced pigmentation, which makes most or part of their feathers look pale or white. They are not the same as albino birds, but they can sometimes resemble them. What fascinated me most was that I could have easily missed the bird had it been alone. I would have thought it to be some other kind of bird! For me, the fact that the pale cormorant was with the dark cormorants made all the difference,” Raghuvamsh said.

“Curious about how unusual the sighting was, I began searching online for documented records of leucistic Great Cormorants in India. I could find very little information, which made me even more interested in having the bird independently identified and documented,” he said.