KARIMNAGAR: On weekdays, Gosika Madhu shapes young minds as a government schoolteacher, while Abdula Raheem, a software engineer, writes code. But come the weekend, this unlikely duo turns into Telangana’s avian detectives: cameras in hand, eyes to the sky and hearts set on discovery. Their latest find has etched their names into the state’s ornithological history: the first-ever live documentation of the elusive small buttonquail in Telangana, a bird so adept at camouflage it had never before been photographed alive in the state.
Madhu and Raheem, co-founders of the Karimnagar Birdwatchers Community, are driven by a shared passion for birds and nature. On their regular field trips, they have captured over 200 species on camera. But their recent sighting at the SRSP backwaters in Nandipet, Nizamabad district, was nothing short of a miracle, bird lovers say.
The bird they photographed, the small buttonquail (Turnix sylvaticus), also known as the common buttonquail, had never been live-recorded in Telangana on the global birding platform eBird. “There were only two previous records for the state, and one of those was of a dead bird,” Madhu tells TNIE.
Often mistaken for a quail, the small buttonquail is a secretive, ground-dwelling bird that inhabits grasslands, scrublands and dry farmlands across Asia and Africa. It is notoriously difficult to spot, preferring to run instead of fly and blending effortlessly into its surroundings. Adding to its mystique is its unusual mating behaviour: the female initiates courtship, while the male incubates the eggs and raises the chicks.
The duo’s discovery adds to a growing list of significant sightings by KBC. In October 2024, they recorded 150 to 200 endangered Indian Skimmers at the Lower Manair Dam (LMD) in Karimnagar, the first-ever appearance of the species documented in Telangana.
Whether in the classroom, at a computer desk, or behind a camera in the wild, Madhu and Raheem prove that curiosity, dedication, and teamwork can lead to extraordinary discoveries.