Painted Spurfowl (in picture) and Large Eared Owl, two species of birds rarely seen in Bihar, were recently sighted by Navin Kumar, a member of the Indian Bird Conservation Network (IBCN) at Rajgir and Gaya respectively. The enthusiast claimed that Briton John Vivian sighted the spurfowl last in the state at Sonepur in 1865. IBCN state coordinator Arvind Mishra said: “Except the reporting by Vivian, there is no literary mention about the Painted Spurfowl in the past decade or two, when reporting of bird sightings in the state began.” The spurfowl belongs to the pheasant family and is found in rocky hills and scrub forests of peninsular India. Picture by Navin Kumar