Rare migrant bird Pallas Grasshopper Warbler sighted in AP
Sangareddy: A rare migrant bird, which has been sighted just five times in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh since 1871, was sighted by a seasoned birder in Eastern Ghats at Katravulapalli village in Jaggampeta Mandal of East Godavari district.
The furtive migrant bird, Pallas Grasshopper Warbler, also called Rusty Rumped Warbler (Helopsaltes certhiola), is native to Siberia, Japan and Russia. Though it migrates to Southern India, sighting the bird is very rare since the shy bird always stays away from human movement and prefers to keep itself deep in the vegetation.
It was first sighted in Dummugudem in Khammam district of Telangana in 1871 by British Scientist Blanford. After more than five decades, Dr Salim Ali, Father of Indian Ornithology, and Richard Meinertzhagen, a British ornithologist, sighted the bird again in 1927 in Warangal district.
American Ecologist Trever Price identified the bird in 1977 in Lambasingi during his visit to India. V Shantaram, noted faculty of Ornithology, had recorded the bird in Rishi Valley in Chittoor district in 1994. The last it was caught on camera was in 2019 in Tirupati by Suhas Sawant, researcher at IISER (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) Tirupati.
Jimmy Carter Polimati, an environmentalist and wildlife photographer, identified three birds near his native village Katravulapally on April 25 evening. Since he could not document them well during the night, he spent another two hours on April 26 to videograph and photograph the rare bird species, Jimmy Carter told Telangana Today.
“I was indeed very lucky to watch the birds very close to my village,” Jimmy Carter said. Ornithologists, Wildlife Photographers and Environmentalists appreciated Jimmy for identifying the rare bird.
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