A rare raptor and an IUCN near-threatened species, the lesser fish eagle, has eluded the Tricity’s accomplished birding and photography community this winter. There are just two records of its presence in a remote part of the Sukhna lake, the first being a visual sighting on October 26, 2025, by a chowkidar. The second was an authentic photograph by a birder who had the least chance of clicking it. But such are the ‘misteries’ of Mother Nature when it allots Lady Luck on a foul, foggy day!
Tushar Kaushik is a communications professional from Bengaluru and hails from a family of birders. Kaushik’s interest in birds is not limited to photographing them but also observing their behavioural complexities with binoculars. He was in Chandigarh briefly and decided to brave the lake on December 29, 2025, when the waterbody looked anything but welcoming, cast in a grey veil of fog and the hush of bones gone quiet in an icy, forsaken graveyard.
As Kaushik stood chilled to the bone and his bird checklist equally cold, a distant commotion of resident crows caught his attention. His experience told him that the crows could be heckling and mobbing a lone raptor or owl. He trained his binoculars and a confrontational scene loomed on a mist-draped tree top hundreds of yards away.
It was the eagle, a reticent winter tourist to the lake and possessed of a distinguished grey head, lemon-yellow irises, white legs and a bolt upright posture. The mighty fish hunter was under harassment and attack from the hoi polloi of the avian world. Kaushik quickly took misty photographs before the eagle vanished from the foggy scene, unable to withstand the ‘murder of crows’. A mere minute the eagle was visible on the tree top and Kaushik was right there!
{{/usCountry}}It was the eagle, a reticent winter tourist to the lake and possessed of a distinguished grey head, lemon-yellow irises, white legs and a bolt upright posture. The mighty fish hunter was under harassment and attack from the hoi polloi of the avian world. Kaushik quickly took misty photographs before the eagle vanished from the foggy scene, unable to withstand the ‘murder of crows’. A mere minute the eagle was visible on the tree top and Kaushik was right there!
{{/usCountry}}The eagle’s earlier October sighting had also come from unexpected quarters. It was courtesy Ranjeet Singh ‘Sagar’, a forest chowkidar recently dismissed from service. Sagar’s self-taught knowledge of birds and wild creatures belied his education and background. The eagle sighting was one of the enviable checklists and records Sagar had unearthed from the forest depths during his aborted service.
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