E-Paper
White-cheeked starling photographed first time in Manipur
The white-cheeked starling was spotted and photographed at a wetland on the outskirts of Manipur’s capital Imphal during a bird survey
For the first time in Manipur, white-cheeked starling or grey starling (Spodiopsar cineraceus), a passerine bird of the starling family, was spotted and photographed at a wetland on the outskirts of Manipur’s capital Imphal during a bird survey.
Loyangamba Irungbam, a member of Wildlife Explorers Manipur (WEM), spotted and photographed the rare bird feeding amongst a flock of ‘Paid Starlings’, also known as ‘Chonga Thijabi’, at Lamphelpat area, a wetland in Imphal West district on April 14 around 9am.
The medium sized dark grey-brown bird with white cheeks was seen and recorded for the first time in the picturesque wetland surrounded by green hills on its the western and northern side. even though there was a record of sighting the bird only in Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India, according to WEM.
The bird was sighted in Arunachal Pradesh in 2017, 2019 and 202,1 respectively.
The identity of the bird was established with the help of former assistant director Raju Kasambe of the Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, they said.
The white-cheeked starling, which is native to Eastern Asia, breeds in northeastern Asia and migrates to Japan, South Korea, south-eastern China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the winter, with stragglers reaching Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines and of late, India.
Stating that the recent sighting of the species in Manipur contributes to the growing number of sighting records of the species, WEM secretary E Premjit, who is also a member of the Indian Bird Conservation Network, said, “The sighting of the bird for the first time in Manipur has raised expectations that the bird will be sighted more often in the future.”
In January this year, a team from the WEM also sighted the rare Baikal Teal (Sibirionetta formosa), also known as ‘Surit-man’ in Manipuri (Meiteilon), after 109 years at the Lamphelpat wetland during this winter migratory bird season.
It may be worth mentioning here that the WEM team in the state conducted the first Amur falcon census in Manipur last year.
