The year’s migratory bird season is in full swing and the latest visitors to the wetlands near the city include the charismatic greater flamingo and the Amur falcon.
On November 25, birdwatchers sighted the greater flamingo ( Phoenicopterus roseus ) wading in the shallow waters of a pokkali rice field at Kadamakkudy.
While the greater flamingo is one of the most widespread of the six species of flamingoes worldwide (it is seen across Africa, south Asia, the Middle-east and parts of Europe), the bird is a winter visitor to most parts of Kerala.
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“This is the first time I spotted a greater flamingo at Kadamakkudy,” said an excited Navin Antony who was also able to photograph the bird.
A jeweller by profession, Antony has been observing and photographing birds at Kadamakkudy for the last five years.
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Other birdwatching teams including that of the Cochin Natural History Society (CNHS) also spotted the large bird in the same area on Sunday.
A day later, Mr. Antony and his friend spotted a lone Amur falcon, a small bird of prey that has been in the news over the last few years because of the huge numbers in which it arrives in north east India and was rampantly hunted until very recently.
“We saw the Amur falcon resting and preening its feathers in the morning,” said Mr. Antony.
Amur falcons, which breed in Siberia, have been sighted in several spots across Kerala, as they make a final pit stop before flying over the Arabian Sea and into southern Africa to spend the winter there.
Greater flamingoes too had been spotted in other wetlands around the city before, said Vishnupriyan Kartha, secretary of the city-based CNHS.
“The birds have been recorded in the wetlands at Changaram and Kandakadavu during the migratory season,” he said.
Other migratory species that have been sighted in the area over the last week include the Siberian stonechat, Pallas’s grasshopper warbler, Eurasian marsh harrier, booted warbler and several species of sandpipers.
Last week, birdwatchers and photography enthusiasts spotted a large migratory duck, the ruddy shelduck, in the same area.