A bird hailing from Eastern Europe, with just a single recorded sighting in Bengal, was spotted at Baruipur, situated in the southern periphery of the city, last week.
Two juvenile ortolan buntings were found in a grassland near the new correctional home at Baruipur.
Sandeep Biswas, an IT employee, identified the birds by sharing their pictures on a social media platform favoured by birdwatchers in Europe.
“I am not the first one to spot the bird or photograph it at Baruipur. Other bird watchers spotted and photographed the birds before me last week,” said Biswas, also a regional reviewer of eBird, a citizen science initiative by Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the US.
Biswas said the birds’ behaviour and where they were spotted raised doubts in his mind about their species. Since ortolan buntings are very rare in Bengal, Biswas has no experience of seeing the birds from close, he said.
The two birds were photographed in an open area.
“I went to Baruipur on Saturday. I took pictures of the birds from different angles, video recorded their movements, and also did audio recordings of their calls,” said Biswas, a resident of Dum Dum.
He then posted the video recordings and photographs on BirdForum, a popular platform among birdwatchers in Europe. “At least three very dependable and trusted birdwatchers from Europe said that these were Ortolan Buntings,” he said.
The eBird website mentions that ortolan bunting “breeds mainly in open and semiopen agricultural areas, slopes, and in mountains with scattered bushes and trees.”
It added: “Non-breeding habitat similar, but includes sparse, highland grasslands and fields.”
Ashwin Vishwanathan, who is part of a team that manages Bird Count India, confirmed that there were very few sightings of Ortolan Bunting in India. “There have been a few sightings in the high Himalayas and Kerala, but it is rare for this bird to be seen in eastern India,” said Vishwanathan.
Bird Count India works with birdwatchers across the country to generate both informal (casual birding) and formal (systematic surveys and monitoring) data on birds.
“Ortolan Buntings are birds of Europe and Central Asia. During winter, they migrate to the African continent, but rarely to this region. It seems the birds flew off the route,” said Vishwanathan.
Biswas said the two birds sighted in Baruipur are “juvenile and immature”, a reason why their gender could not be confirmed.
Shubhankar Patra, a veteran birdwatcher, said the last recorded sighting of Ortolan Bunting in Bengal was of a single bird at Dobanki in the Sundarbans in October 2014.