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| Red-breasted Merganser female, pic courtesy Saurabh Sawant |
Saurabh, Abhinav and I walked in a hurry in the hot afternoon sun. We were in Vasai, a suburb of Mumbai looking for a very unlikely feathered visitor. This bird is so rare that this is the official first record of its sighting in India. And we couldn’t wait to see her. The visitor we were so eagerly looking forward to was none other than the “Red-breasted Merganser”.
And what a place to see it!
Through the busy Vasai traffic we entered a quiet residential lane. The lane ended only to become a wide well laid out road. On either sides of the road, large faded bill boards advertised upcoming residential projects at bargain prices. The most ominous sign of all was a construction office, behind which excavators carried out half hearted work. The pace of the equipment was quite in contrast to the eager way the billboards claimed when the project would be completed.
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| Lovely lily leaves carve a path in the channel |
Even though it was mid-afternoon bird activity was still on. We saw a Shikra try to rouse some sleepy doves out of their afternoon stupor. Saurabh heard the unmistakable chweep of a Paddyfield Pipit as we crossed the scrubby grassland leading to the pools. The road carried on further inside, marking out large square marshy pools on either side. The initial pools had dried out and choked with grasses. In these we saw a big flock of Open-billed Storks, who took to wing as soon as we neared. No doubt the binoculars and cameras must have given them a scare even as locals in bright gaudy clothing walked past nonchalantly.
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| Painted Storks circled overhead as we searched for the Merganser |
We continued birding as we searched for the Merganser. A number of Black-winged Stilts, Common Sandpipers, Terns, and Pond Herons were feeding in the shallow pool as Saurabh walked on ahead while Abhinav walked behind carrying a heavy camera and lens. That’s when I saw a dull coloured duck dabbling nonstop in the shallow pool. I called out to Saurabh to confirm if it was the Merganser and so it was.
The male Red-breasted Merganser has a deep rusty chest and hence the name, however the female is uniformly slaty grey, with a pale throat and chest merging with a darker neck. The slender scarlet orange beak is an easy way to distinguish it from other ducks and grebes.
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| The Merganser kept dabbling in the shallow pool with other birds for company |
Though it’s a diving duck, these pools being too shallow for it, the Merganser seemed content just dabbling continuously. She was not very shy and kept on exploring the pool from one end to the other. We had a long and satisfying sighting before the evening approached and she suddenly disappeared after a short flight.
This sighting is at the same time heartening and dismaying. It’s an absolute joy to see such a vagrant in the middle of the city but it’s dismaying because one can see with their own eyes the unstoppable march of the city. Perhaps next year when the bird comes flying this way, instead of green marshy ponds, it may only see square grey buildings and nowhere to land.
And that is why it is imperative that birders continue birding and reporting common and uncommon sightings. We may not always stop the city in its tracks but we may surely try to slow down its march to claim everything in its path. Perhaps even now some hidden and overlooked pool somewhere holds rare feathered beauties waiting to be discovered.
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| Prey and Predator live side by side, seemingly in harmony |
You can see the checklist of all the birds we sighted here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/
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