Gurgaon: “The bird stood out because of its plumage and overall structure,” said birder Akshit Dua, as a rare sharp-tailed sandpiper was spotted in Chandu village on Sunday.The latest sighting comes nearly seven years after the previous recorded sighting in the Delhi-NCR area, highlighting the rarity of the species in the region. The birder said the species is classified as vulnerable.Dua was scanning a patch of agricultural fields in Chandu where several waders had gathered. “The bird appeared different from the sandpipers commonly seen in the area. Photographs were taken and the identification was subsequently verified as a sharp-tailed sandpiper,” said Dua.The sighting of the sandpiper — Calidris acuminata — marks an unusual record for the city, adding to the handful of sightings of the species reported from India.The Chandu bird was alone but was seen associating with more familiar local waders, including wood sandpipers, green sandpipers and common sandpipers.Dua told TOI, “Unlike many waders that are regularly seen in the region, the sharp-tailed sandpiper appears to use India only occasionally during its migration. The bird is believed to travel between breeding grounds in the northern regions and wintering areas farther south and east, making its appearance in the city landscape particularly unusual.”According to the eBird portal, “It is a medium-sized sandpiper with distinct cap. Breeding adults are heavily marked with chevrons and spots on the underparts and have a rich chestnut cap and white eye-ring. Nonbreeding adults are duller grayish-brown with a drab brown cap. Breeding on tundra in Russia and wintering to Australia and New Zealand. Regular migrant in Alaska; rare to Pacific coast of US and Canada. Found in freshwater marshes and coastal mudflats, sometimes inland.”According to the birder, the sighting could be linked to the bird’s migratory route. It may have stopped in the area temporarily to rest or feed while moving along the Central Asian flyway, he said.Pankaj Gupta, a birder from Delhi Bird Society, said, “The species is a rare passage migrant in India and is not recorded here regularly every year. The previous known sighting in the Delhi-NCR area was in Sept 2019, from the Delhi side of the Najafgarh area. There have also been records from Wular Lake in Kashmir, while a sighting was reported from Kerala this year.”The sighting was made while the birder was looking through a larger congregation of waders in a field. He initially noticed the bird because its feather pattern was different from the sandpipers normally found there. Photographs helped confirm the identification.
