Rare Indian grasslands’ bird sighted in Kanpur

A man in Kanpur recorded the city's first sighting of the endangered Bristled Grassbird, an enigmatic species with declining population, on Friday morning.

Paying attention to a distinctive melodious bird call while moving in a car on the trans-Ganga city road, a man actually recorded sighting of the Bristled Grassbird, an endangered bird, likely to be the first time in Kanpur city.

The Bristled Grassbird (Shared by Raghav Gupta)

“This is Kanpur’s first photographic record of the Bristled Grassbird, an endangered species, that was recorded on Friday morning,” said Raghav Gupta, who belongs to Kanpur, and is an IRS officer currently posted in the ministry of home affairs, in New Delhi.

The Bristled Grassbird is an enigmatic bird of Indian grasslands. Its movements outside the breeding season are not very well known. This is owed largely to its vocalisations which are heard only during the breeding season. The population of the bird is declining, and it has been assessed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said Gupta.

“I have come across bird species which are not commonly encountered, such as streaked weaver, black bittern, cinnamon bittern, yellow bittern, striated grassbird, black francolin, etc. Now, the endangered Bristled Grassbird has also joined the list.”