Himalayan bird spotted in Bhondsi exactly a year after it was last seen

A Himalayan bird, the fire-capped tit, was seen this past weekend by multiple groups of birders at the Bhondsi Nature Park on Bharat Yatra Kendra Road, exactly a

A Himalayan bird, the fire-capped tit, was seen this past weekend by multiple groups of birders at the Bhondsi Nature Park on Bharat Yatra Kendra Road, exactly a year after it was last seen in the same area. The sighting has elicited excitement among birders, as this particular species had previously been seen in Delhi-NCR only on two occasions — in 1975 and 1980.

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The fire-capped tit, which can be recognised from its small build and orange-scarlet crest, was seen and photographed by Gurugram-based birder Amit Sharma on Saturday evening at about 5pm. “We spotted three pairs on Sunday, and then six pairs on Monday. So there seems to be a large flock that is staying there. The birds were actively feeding on sheesham trees,” Sharma said.

On March 25 last year, Gurugram-based birder Mamta Kacker Muttreja had chanced upon 10 to 15 fire-capped tits in the same park. However, the birds were not sighted again after that day. “This time, they have stayed on for a few days. I think they are likely to hang back for a few days at the most before continuing their migration back after the winter,” said Pankaj Gupta of the Delhi Bird Foundation.

There exists a published record of the bird being seen in Delhi in 1957, in Usha Ganguli’s renowned book, A Guide to the Birds of the Delhi Area. Another birder, Sudhir Vyas, reportedly saw the winged-creature in 1980. There are also some records of the bird being seen in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh during the winter months, Singh said.

Nikhil Devasar, a Delhi-based birder, said, “The sighting of the fire-capped tit in Gurugram, two years in a row, is firstly a testament to the quality of habitat. The area in question was earlier a private property which was taken over by the government and transformed into a park where biodiversity seems to be thriving in the absence of human interference. Secondly, there are many more people in Delhi-NCR taking up birding as a hobby. Bhondsi Nature Park has only been explored properly in the past two or three years, which is why significant sightings are being reported from the area.”

The fire-capped tit is classified as a ‘least concern’ (LC) species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), which means that its risk of extinction has been evaluated without much worry.