Lesser Florican – Sypothetides India

States surveyed – Gujarat – Naliya, dist – Abdasa , Kutch – 50000 hectare

Habitat – Tropical GRASSLAND , Bio geographic zone – DESRERT , SEMI ARID

Local name of LESSER FLORICAN in Naliya – TILLORE

Total number of L F s recorded – 1

Velavadar – dist Bhavnagar, Saurashtra , total area – 3400 hectares

Habiatat – tropical GRASSLAND , bio geo zone – Semi ARID

Local name for lesser florican – KHAR MORE / TILORE

Total number of Lf s recorded – 6

Dahod – eastern Gujarat Dist – Panchmahal

Area size – 2000 hectares – Rampuria grasslands

Habitat – tropical GRASSLAND , bio zone – semi ARID

LOCAL NAME for lesser florican in Panchmahal district – TOOR KUKDEE

Total number of LF s recorded this year – NIL

Madhya Pradesh – Sardarpur – Dhar district ( 34,000 hectares )

Habitat – tropical grassland , bio geo zone – SEMI ARID

Local name of lesser florican – BHAT KOOKDAA / BHAT TEETAR

Total number of LF s recorded this year – NIL

Madhya Pradesh – Sailana – Ratlam district , ( 1200 hectares )

Habiatat – tropical grassland – bio geo zone – SEMI ARID

Local name of lesser florican – khar more

Total number of Lf s recorded this year – 6

Rajasthan – Shahpura – Bhilwara district . area – 6000 hectares

Habitat – Scattered tropical GRASSLANDS – tropical secondary SHRUB

bio geo – semi – ARID

total number of L f s recorded – NIL .

SURVEY – Day 1 – started from Sabarmati , Ahd , on the drive to Naliya , Abdasa, kutch ….anticipated about 6 to 7 hours of drive …. The internet showed much less time , but believe me , we reached kutch only sun down …. In spite of the fact that Gujarat roads are one of the best in the country …. We always have some reasons to be delayed …. Leaving the main national highways of the country all our roads are pre dominantly struck by… CATTLE HERDS …. And that’s the traffic problem in lesser known roads. Thus is I like this , COW COUNTRY ( 540 million cattle and growing )

We were crossing midway to a place called MALIYA …… crossed a small lake getting the first taste of brown kutch sand , and the texture of land had
changed considerably …. The lake had almost 500 birds count of multiple species …. The most prominent was the black headed ibis , great cormorant …. I could not spend much time birding as this was a trip fully dedicated to the estimation LESSER FLORICAN …. So birding would be just opportunistic in nature .

After crossing Bhuj city by about evening we reached Naliya , and the destination was village TERA ( 12 kms before Naliya )… there s a small rest house called dharam shala , which is basically an ashram used by WII for all their research team round the year …. The maharaja of kutch has donated this place for further studies on nature … that’s a great gesture from him or anyone accomplishing this….many thanks to him.

The ashram s a verandah with a big oak tree in the centre … hosting a number of species like the purple sunbird , Asian koel … whom I heard the first morning after that night …. I also noticed that the ashram was a really old single storeyed bldg …. And the purple sun birds were early morning visitors … inside the building …. Tweeting around the old walls and excavating for mineral s and salt .
Wii has a round the year staff in Shabbu and Azar …. Shabbu a dedicated field man for the GIB … and azar was our all rounder and a local of Tera Village … who cooked us many meals for the next ten days .

My realization , ornithology is hard , coming from the comforts of advertising arena , I was in here for a tough night .Thought of giving almost 10 kms of walk every day , for next three weeks was giving jitters . My discussion s with Shabbu ,led me to know about HOBURA bustard … a winter
migrant to a small part of western India …. Hobura is a hard to reach Bustard as it is very active to human presence … quickly takes to the flight …..as of GIB , it stays momentary for long ,,,, and has been marked to be in one position for more than an hour if the conditions are overcast and mild rains . HB is a winter migrant and resident of west asia whereas the gib is a resident and a partial migrant . I was shown the gorgeous feather of HOBURA …and to a urban migrant like me …. I noticed …. That people from Wildlife industry, really care for small tokens of these species , with such high regard . HOBURA has been successfully bred in captivity ….in abu dhabi , middle east . Naliya , Kutch is a big area … with many grids ( about 80 ) of observation from the past records of the WII … also it’s a place close to pakistan border … and has a prominent AIR FORCE BASE . we decided to make an initial recci to grasslands of Naliya the next day morning . After hearing a few stories from the locals at TERA , naliya …. Seems that the air port base at Naliya also holds base for GIB s …as a matter of fact , this is the only hot spot in our country to have all the 3 bustards together , GIB , LF and the HOBURA ….mostly in the month of September . 31 st Aug 2014 – Sunday
The opportunistic bird moments of the mornings were Shikra , Red Naped ibis , Southern grey shrike , Eurasian roller …. I must say its an auspicious bird some say in deccan and below …. Its also called neelkanth ,,,known for its religious taxanomy too . We went to Kunatha , bhachunda and sandhav …. Got the first feel of grassland habitat … The evening birding resulted in variable wheatear , indian robin , wire tailed swallow , dusky craig martins , baya weavers , In the evening at the dharmshala at tera , naliya , abdasa , kutch …. Commoner birds were Asian pied starling , rosy starling , brahminy starling , common myna , asial koel , purple sunbird , three types of doves eurasian collared dove , laughing dove , red necked dove , wire tailed swallow , indian peafowl , feral pigeon , ashy crowned sparrow lark , in fact the feral pigeon was a rarity to spot . Monday Sept 1 , 2014 Next morning we drove to bhuj city …. We had to mandatorily meet the DFO …
Mr Vihol … looked to me a stern man ….. but finally agreed to let carry on our research and statistics … he added , here in Kutch … not seen many and two records were spotted in Suthri and jhako regions of naliya ,,,, that’s a huge concern for Kutch ….and a drastic number decline …. 2001 ( Sankaran ) recorded close to 50 LF s here . What I liked of the DFO ,,,, we were given instructions not to carry a professional camera , filming equipment inside areas , and I quickly agreed as I was let a mini click and shoot camera …. Sufficient for me to document my entire experience …. Of course … I felt the need for filming the rare birds …. But my focus was study of LF s …. The ornithologist in me had to take a back seat , many times …. And looks that I will have to survive it in the next 4 weeks to come …..

Tues – wed September 2 and 3 ,2014

Surveying always demands early mornings , as birding activity is the liveliest in the mornings …. We set foot with following eqts – binocs , range finder , gps meter , bearing compass , field data sheets , click shoot camera , bird books .

Range finder – gives u the distance of the object thru its view …. U click the shutter on the focussed object – you will get the distance … but restricted to 400 mts only …. New device for me…. In advertising I toy with view finder …. A magnification and lens selecting instrument for different film lenses in one go ., in all formats.

GPS meter – Well this is a GARMIN instrument , where all the grids of survey are already fed by WII …. So we get the grid of operation …. The feeds are past records of the WII survey …. But it helps us to get the accurate postion of the bird , with all the gps co ordinates ,,,,it also has other features like mark ur track , trip odometer , which is critical on the line transect method survey .

Bearing Compass – apart from the normal needle position feature , the Bearing mark is like an angle from the GPS co ordinates ……it particularly helps to re locate a postion of the bird … for further records and studies= …. It’s a small aperture opening , thru which you can see a bird postion and corresponding measurement of angle to it .

The above four are basic and critical tools to bird surveys .

The place – Suthri and sandhaa ….this looks to a muddy area with montage of shrubland , and an interesting texture mix of brown and greens … on one of the excursions , our 4 X 4 got stuck eventually in sand ,,, and we had to thus call the tractor , 10 kms away … it cost us also a good amount to pay off the tractor guy , roughly one pink note or more ….the job was done within 5 mins of the vehicle getting stuck …. Have a video documentation of the stuck vehicle too .

Many water laden kuccha roads to the grasslands ,,,, as the rains in the last week had made the terrain muddy and sticky ,,,, at the same time the browns were more saturated and the green contrast looked soothing …. Nature at it s best …. For a town dweller like myself …. I was in lucky land …..

This also happenes to be the GIB habitat , but none to sight as such ….so was the case with lesser floricans too …. The dfo of Gujarat had mentioned sighting here …. But we were not lucky as such …..this is a vast area … and places in Kutch – naliya …. Are evenly spread … so I was sure , that we would cross this area in some of our next surveys for sure ….

Birding today extracted as many as 9 Indian Coursers , 6 red naped ibis , grey francolins , rain quails , rosy starlings , Eurasian rollers , grey backed shrike , long tailed shrike , hoopes , ashy crowned sparrow lark s , variable wheatears , jungle babler s , black shouldered kite . But still elusive on LF s .

Sept 4 , 2014 – thusrday – lala wls

We were finally getting a little worried on any spotting at all of the LF s , as this had been the 5 th day in Kutch …. And the DFO’s figure s were not as hopeful anyway …..

Lala is a place near Jhakao …. Which is a border region to the coast of kutch ….as it’s a long drive from tera , we had to start early …. And reach the spot just on the brink of sunlight ….

As we braced the entrance of the wls , we were to a see a Machan …. And unmanned …. There were no security guards as such , a rickety gate welcomed
us …. We opened the gate ourself .,,,, but I realized that this is a really far off site …. And also wls have periods of tourist entries ….

On the gate itself about 100 mts from us , we heard the first frog like croak turr turr turr turr ….. whoaaaaa …. It was the first LESSER FLORICAN for me almost after a week of leaving bombay .

The weather was overcast and mild , It was displaying …. A solitarty lf …. My associate research fellow says that this must be a lonely LF s …. But a further study on earlier papers have mentioned ….thats LF s also have a solitary life …. It always need not have the LEK system of mating or calling …..and still display !!

Threats to this area are — proximity of Wind Turbine s…. in fact the lesser florican was displaying in the backdrop of Wind turbines and cattle grazing in close proximity ….inside the LALA wls .

The birding today yielded , lesser florican , hoopoes , western reef egret and variable wheatear …. And all other common species of Kutch .

September 5 , 2014

Excursions today yielded , isabelline shrike , grey backed shrike , rain quail , sandgrouse , as new species of opportunistic birding .

September 6 , 2014

We planned to visit Bhanada and kothara , as usual ours was an early morning exit from the base camp at Tera , again Kothara is a far off point to Tera …. We stopped in the morning for a regular chai tapri ,,,,, I was fascinated by the group of common mynas and rosy starlings feasting on something near the tea stall …. I asked the humble chai stall owner , as to what are those birds munching on …. To be thrown a question early morning from a city bred dweller , he was more than happy to explain ….. sayin here you go ,,,,, he plucked out a huge packet of GATHIYA …. Pounced a handful of them ,,,,, and flung ,,,,, it was a sight …. All the mynas and starling s took up a frenzy attack to the GATHIYAS …. Well well well …. What are GATHIYAS .,,,, they are basically DEEP fried besan munchies , which are elongated like sevias ….. to simplify , its gram flour , chana dal flour
make from chick peas flour …. U can say …..its a munching favourite of Gujarat ….also a favourite in Mumbai street food .