TIRUVANNAMALAI: R Sivakumar, a wildlife artist from Tiruvannamalai, was returning from a routine birdwatching trip around noon on September 27 when a flash of brown and blue caught his eye amid the green surroundings at Poyampalli Thanda, a rural hamlet in the Pinjur reserve forest behind the Sathanur dam.
Taking a closer look, its slim, chestnut-brown body and turquoise blue wings became clearer. It wasn’t just his 15 years of birdwatching experience at play when he recognised it as a European roller but his yearning too to someday catch sight of the migratory bird that usually breeds in Europe and Central Asia and migrates thousands of kilometres during winter. It is the first-ever recorded sighting of a European roller in the district.
On the sighting, which has been recorded on eBird - a platform run by Cornell University where birdwatchers and ornithologists document bird sightings with photographs and other details – Sivakumar recalled a recent alert in his birdwatching community about a European roller being spotted near Mudichur in Tambaram. "We cannot tell if it is the same bird spotted in Mudichur. However, there were reports of European rollers being spotted in nearby places so I was also waiting to see one," he said.
Between August and November, European rollers migrate through India, predominantly across the northwestern and western parts of the country. Some then make an open-water crossing over the Arabian Sea to reach Africa, where they spend the winter.
The roller spotted at Pinjur is believed to be a passage migrant, making a temporary stop after undertaking a 7,000-km flight as part of its migration.
Grassland haunt
According to Sivakumar, the open grassland in Pinjur may have attracted the bird. “Usually, rollers prefer staying in open grasslands near agricultural fields. They feed on insects such as grasshoppers and other small insects. In this case too, there was ploughed agricultural land near the spot where the roller was found,” said the birdwatcher working with The Forest Way, an NGO involved in restoring forests and other green spaces in Tiruvannamalai.
V Arun, managing trustee of The Forest Way, said open grasslands are on the decline across the country. “Most of these grasslands are cleared for industrialisation or for installing solar panels, leaving very few places for migratory birds to stop over,” he added.
For Sivakumar, the sighting made the day particularly special. Besides the European roller, he spotted a Siberian stonechat and an Indian grey hornbill - both uncommon to the region.
“The Indian grey hornbill is sometimes spotted in the Amirthi forest in Vellore and the Jawadhu Hills, whereas the Siberian stonechat is rarer and had been spotted near Mamandur lake in Tiruvannamalai earlier,” he said.