Birders spot White-cheeked tern off M’luru coast for first time

A group of birders carried out a survey on pelagic birds and spotted as many as 43 species of pelagic birds off the Mangaluru coast.

The group recorded White-cheeked tern for the first time on the Karnataka coast and Persian Shearwater was sighted after a decade, informed bird enthusiast Shivashankar.

"White-cheeked tern is a fantastic pelagic with lots of action. A Persian Shearwater, Long-tailed Skuas, and many White-cheeked terns stole the show, along with roving schools of a smallish Tuna and a huge Marlin jumping out of the water,” said Shivashankar, who is working as a software engineer.

A total of 35 birders had participated in the survey covering Bunder, Old Port, Tannirbavi and surrounding areas.

Shivashankar told DH that the Tuna schools had forced other smaller fish to the surface, which in turn attracted many Common, White-cheeked, Lesser Crested Terns and the Shearwater.

"Many Skuas also enjoyed this as they had many Terns to harass,” he said with a smile.

“We have been doing this survey as part of our hobby and many MSc/PhD students had attended it as part of their curriculum," he added.

They usually conduct such surveys with the fisheries department of Mangaluru. The previous survey was conducted in March 2021.

Incidentally, Shivashankar, along with Dr K Prabhakar Achar, a biologist (who had also served as a research associate at IISc, Bengaluru), had published a bilingual volume on the avifauna of coastal and hinterland Karnataka, titled 'Birds of Southern Coastal Karnataka', a few years ago.

Variety of birds

Some of the species of pelagic birds spotted include White-cheeked tern, White-breasted waterhen, Pomarine Jaeger, Parasitic Jaeger, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Bridled tern, Gull-billed tern, Caspian tern, Common tern, Great Crested tern, Sandwich tern, Little Cormorant, Indian Cormorant, Gray Heron, Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Little Egret, Western Reef-Heron, Cattle Egret, Indian Pond-Heron, Striated Heron, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Black KiteBrahminy Kite, White-bellied Sea-Eagle, Barn Owl, White-throated Kingfisher, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Coppersmith Barbet, White-cheeked Barbet, Indian Golden Oriole, Wire-tailed Swallow and others.