Himalayan songbird makes a rare visit to Bengaluru

Bengaluru: A Himalayan rubythroat (Calliope pectoralis) has been spotted at Hoskote Lake, on the outskirts of Bengaluru, marking the first recorded sighting of the species in south India and attracting birders from across the city. 

The small songbird is identified by its bright ruby coloured throat, a black patch extending to its breast and a white belly with patterned brown upperparts. 

Prashant Sharma, a birder, spotted it first along with fellow birding enthusiast Nirmalya Sinha. Describing the experience as “unexpected”, Prashant says it is a significant sighting as the bird is typically found in the Himalayan ranges and rarely ventures this far south. 

“There are no prior records, but that doesn’t mean they’ve never ventured this far south — it was just never spotted by anyone,” says Prashant. 

These occurrences, termed ‘vagrant’, are not ecologically concerning due to the low number of individuals, experts say.

Ecologist and ornithologist Krishna M B uses the analogy of medicine dosage to explain that a “significant impact requires a higher concentration of individuals”. “It has to be observed if the species is going to be found here regularly and if it will colonise. Until then, it is not unusual. Birds, like humans, wander and explore, and because they can fly, they can cover greater distances,” he says, citing the example of a Malabar whistling thrush — mostly found in the Western Ghats — that spent a week at Hebbal lake in Bengaluru. 

Ashwin Viswanathan, a scientist who works with the Nature Conservation Foundation, suggests that unusual weather or winds could explain the rubythroat’s visit to Bengaluru. “Climate change could be an important threat for this bird and other high-elevation breeding birds,” he says.

Ashwin says the bird breeds during the summer in the high elevations of the Himalayas. “It migrates to the Himalayan foothills and some parts of northern India in the winter. During summer, its habitat is alpine shrubbery above the tree line (above 3,000m) and in winter, its preferred habitat is bushes and forest edges,” he observes.

The Himalayan rubythroat is shy and prefers to stay hidden within bushes, making it difficult to spot. It spends most of its time skulking within dense grass and thorny bushes, and comes out to forage only when there is little human interaction around. 

“The bird spotted in Bengaluru was a male with a full breeding plumage. It stayed hidden the entire time, darting between clumps of grass and emerging briefly allowing only a few seconds of sighting,” Prashant shares. It has been spotted for three continuous days since Thursday. It was also spotted in Maharashtra a few years ago. 

These birds usually travel with other passerines that favour open grassland and scrub ecosystems like the Himalayan bluethroat, says Prashant.

At Hoskote, birders found the rubythroat in close proximity to a female bluethroat, wintering warblers, and other ground-loving migrant species. “But there have been sightings of the bluethroat in Bengaluru earlier as well,” Prashant notes.

Hoskote Lake, known for its grassland, makes for the perfect habitat for these kinds of birds that migrate long distances in mixed flocks.