Twitchers in Chennai would most likely miss a bunting when they see one in the field. With photography equipment at their disposal, the chance of identification increases. The sighting frozen in pixels, there is now something to peer at, mull over, research on, share and ask around, and finally realise a bunting has crossed their paths.
In the last week of October, and the first one in November, two birders separately spotted and clicked two winter-visiting bunting species — a Black-headed Bunting in Chembarambakkam, and a Grey-necked Bunting in Nanmangalam — and identification took this course.
Sivakumar Shanmugasundaram and Sathyakumar Shanmugasundaram, who are brothers, did not know they had clapped eyes on a bunting till they had posted the photos in “Ask IDS of Indian Birds”, a Facebook group for bird identification. They subsequently documented the sightings in eBird. Buntings, which are winter migrants to these parts, remain a rara avis in Chennai.
“They are perhaps the first documented sighting of these birds in Chennai. As far as I know, there are no records of these buntings in the city before. Probably, there are some old records that we may need to look up, but certainly there is none in recent times,” says ornithologist V. Shantaram who is director of the Institute of Bird Studies at Rishi Valley.
In Thiruvanamalai
At Adaiyur lake in Thiruvanamalai district, two Grey-necked Buntings were sighted on 17 November, 2019, and recorded by Sivakumar Ramasamy on eBird. Earlier that year — on January 14, 2019 — Gnanaskandan Kesavabharathi reported the sighting of a Black-headed Bunting at Adaiyur Quarry & Scrub in Thiruvanamalai district, on eBird.
During the winter months, Sivakumar Shanmugasundaram, a resident of Valasaravakkam, does patch-birding at Chembarambakkam lake. It is a lake he frequents much more than the two others that he regularly ranges around in winter — Nayapakkam and Nemam.
On October 25, while visiting the Chembarambakkam lake, Sivakumar hoped to see a pair of Asian Pied Starlings he had seen the previous year. Scanning a patch of greenery for these birds in vain, he circled around a turnabout to head back home, when a flock of Baya Weavers on the wire caught his eye. While viewing the Baya Weavers through a telephoto lens paired to a Pentax camera, he noticed a bird that he could not put a name to. As it turned out, it was a female Black-headed Bunting. Sexually dimorphic, the male of the species is more colourful and arresting.
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“I have seen the Red-headed Bunting at the Rishi Valley,” says Shantaram. The Red-headed Bunting is closely related to the Black-headed Bunting. “Last year, in Madurai, a Black-headed Bunting and Red-headed Bunting were sighted on the same tree.” Though much of India marks the wintering range of these two migratory buntings, they are seldom seen in impressive numbers — usually in ones and twos.
“We hardly see these birds in these parts, certainly not in impressive numbers” admits Shantaram, adding that there is a resident bunting in India — the Crested Bunting — that is restricted to the northern parts of the country, and not seen in the southern parts.
The male Crested Bunting is a handsome bird, its two-tone colour pattern actually reminding one of festive buntings.
On the morning of November 2, Sathyakumar Shanmugasundaram, a resident of Mugalivakkam, was at Nanmangalam, having “obtained the necessary official permission to visit the reserve forest”, when he saw “this bird on the tip of a bush”.
“I had managed to take only two hasty pictures of the bird when it flew away. On seeing the bird IN the camera screen, it struck me as different from anything I have ever seen before. I posted it in in the ‘Ask IDS of Indian Birds’ on FB, and members confirmed it as a male Grey-necked Bunting,” says Sathyakumar. “As it was very early in the morning and foggy, the photos were not great.”
Sivakumar is an IT professional and Sathyakumar a dentist, and sons of late S. Shanmugasundaram, who retired as Chief Conservator of Forests in 1997, they have taken up the hobby of studying wildlife, especially birds.
Sivakumar points out that birders are getting accustomed to seeing a stray bunting or two around where Baya Weavers, which are resident birds, congregate.
Sundaravel Palanivelu, another birder, has a record of the sighting of a Red-headed Bunting in Virudhunagar two years ago, and he draws attention to how many birders instinctively start scanning places teeming with Baya Weavers for signs of buntings.
