Rare species of bird Crested Bunting spotted at Kanjikode

Rare species of bird Crested Bunting spotted at Kanjikode

Guwahati: A rare and beautiful bird, named crested bunting is spotted at Kanjikode. The rare bird is being witnessed by a team of bird watchers on Sunday while conducting a weekly survey on the eastern parts of Palakkad district.

However, this is the second time when the bird is being spotted. The crested bunting, scientific name Emberiza lathami, originally belongs to South India. In fact, despite having its roots in South India, no bird watcher or ornithologist had been able to spot the bird in that region. It was just a few years ago, that it was seen in the suburbs of Bangalore. What is more amazing is that the little bird is also known as ‘Yuvaraj’ in northern India.

The crested bunting is also spotted occasionally in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It is also found from the Himalayas to southern-central China and Vietnam.

A team of bird watchers, including Praveen Velayudhan, Vivek Sudhakaran, and Deepak Muraleedharan spotted the bird. When the pictures clicked by the bird watchers were examined by senior bird watchers such as Namassivayan Lakshmanan and Praveen Jayadevan, it was being confirmed as the Crested bunting. As stated by Mr. Lakshmanan, the Crested bunting is the 562nd species of bird to be recorded in Kerala.

Furthermore, the senior bird watcher Mr. Lakshmanan added that the natural habitat of this bird is subtropical or tropical dry lowland grassland. The Crested bunting mainly feeds on seeds, fallen grains, and insects.

The Crested bunting bird is generally found in open, bush and rock-covered mountainsides and also sometimes in the open cultivations. Hence, for catching a glimpse of this rare bird, one will have to make sure that he looks for the bird in these places. The call of the bird is soft, somewhat squeaky and sounds like a repeated tip or tup, a monotonous song. The breeding of the bird takes place sometime between April and August that coincides with the local wet season.

The bird places its nest on the ground, under a rock, bush, in crevices or under roots on steep banks. It generally weaves its nest in a cup with grass, moss, fibrous plant stems and thin rootlets. It also uses fine grass and animal hair which makes the nest look very attractive.

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