Hundreds of migrant birds have stayed back in Kadalundi during this monsoon without returning to their breeding habitats thousands of miles away.
The mudflats in the Kadalundi estuary, known for their abundance of invertebrate fauna such as crustaceans and mollusks, have been attracting birds that migrate during the winter from regions like Ladakh, Siberia and Europe. Kadalundi is the most significant stopover for migrant birds in the west coast of India.
The migrants that stayed back in Kadalundi during this monsoon include greenshanks, redshanks, lesser sand-plovers, greater sand-plovers, whimbrels, and kentish plovers.
More than 200 of them were seen voraciously feeding in the mudflats during a low-tide in the weekend. They waded on to the sandbars as waters rose in a waxing tide.
“Those birds did not return to their breeding stations because they were either physically or sexually unfit,” said K.M. Arif, a young ornithologist engaged in the study of migrants in Kadalundi.
Mr. Arif said sub-adult species of birds would normally overwinter without returning to their breeding habitats. “Similarly, no bird which is physically unfit will dare to take the long migratory flight, no matter it is for wintering or breeding,” he said after an early
morning watch at Kadalundi.
Mr. Arif has been holding a close watch over the Kadalundi sanctuary for over four years. He identified more than 110 species of migrant birds during his observations held in the last two years.
“I have been constantly following a migrant whimbrel with a broken leg for the last four years. I could see that bird either on the mudflat or on the sandbar whenever I came here. That bird did not return because of injury. And it cannot until it is completely fit,” Mr. Arif said.
Known in local parlance as Valkokkan, whimbrels are large wading birds with long legs and a long curved bill. They are known to breed across much of sub-arctic North America, Europe, Asia and Scotland.
Kentish plovers breed in most subtropical and tropical parts of the world, from southern Europe to Japan and in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, southern U.S. and the Caribbean.
Greenshanks are sub-Arctic birds known to breed in regions from northern Scotland eastwards across northern Europe and Asia. Redshanks are known to breed in certain parts of Europe, including Scotland.
When greater sand-plovers breed in the semi-deserts of Turkey and Central Asia, lesser sand-plovers are known to breed above the tree line in the Himalayas and in north-eastern Siberia.
The other migrants seen from September to February in Kadalundi include masked booby, frigate bird, Eurasian spoonbill, gray heron, spotted redshank, different terns and gulls, reef heron, oriental ibis and different egrets.
Rare sea birds such as flesh-footed shearwater, brown skua, and pomarine jaeger are also spotted in Kadalundi.
Winged visitors start coming to Kadalundi by mid September. The wintering migration in Kadalundi peaks by December-January. After a season’s comfortable wintering and feeding, most birds return to their breeding habitats before the monsoon.
