The lesser white-fronted goose. Picture by Ranjan Das

Dibrugarh/Guwahati, Nov. 26: A professor of geography, who has been an amateur bird watcher for the past 10 years, today claimed to have spotted an endangered bird at the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park, 40 years after it was last seen at Kaziranga National Park.

Ranjan Das, the avian expert, announced at a news conference in Tinsukia that he had spotted the lesser white-fronted goose in the national park in Tinsukia district on Monday. Dibru-Saikhowa is a haven for migratory birds and hosts several species from Siberia and European countries during winter.

Located in the middle of the Brahmaputra on the eastern tip of Assam, the 40-square km Dibru-Saikhowa National Park can be reached by boat from Guijan ghat, 13km from Tinsukia town. The park is around 500km from Guwahati.

Das, 46, also handed out photographs of a single lesser white-fronted goose, which he had spotted amid a gaggle of other migratory birds. Das is a professor at Tinsukia College. “It is a very important development from the conservation point of view. There are less than 15,000 birds of the species left in the world.”

Das said he would send the photographs and other details about the sighting of the bird to conservation experts in different global organisations, including the Bombay Natural History Society and International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Das, who is doing research on grassland birds in Dibru-Saikhowa, used a Nikon digital camera with telephoto lens to shoot a few stills of the rare bird. “I could make out that it was not a very common bird. But I did not realise that it was a very rare species. Only after I came back and consulted the guide books on birds did I realise that this is an important moment,” he added.

“We have records of the last sighting of the bird in Assam on January 17, 1968, by a Englishman named McKenzie at Kaziranga. After that there are no records of the bird in Assam,” he said.

Das said there was no doubt about his finding as he had the photographs. “I can establish my finding with pictoral support.”

A native of Scandinavia and Siberia, the lesser white fronted goose travels to the south every winter when its home becomes snow-bound and food becomes scarce.

“However, this part of the world is not a natural migration place for the species. A few may have followed other birds to reach this place,” Das said.