Tarique's Travails

River Lapwing in flight - Notice the wing spur

This is the first record of River Lapwing so close to Nagpur

Rarely does nature conspire to show you its best but Sunday 17th was one such day, After a grueling week at the office we were really looking forward to the Sunday trip to the buffer areas of Bor Wildlife Sanctuary and having great wildlife loving friends^[1]
was a treat in itself.

The day started well with us spotting a Sloth Bear around Zhilpi barely 50 meter from the road side but none of us were expecting to see anything so soon and none of us had a camera ready. None the less we were thrilled. We were now very sure that we will see the Tigeress that was seen just 4 days ago by Tarun. We reached to spot on time waited for an hour, then walked around a bit searching for some other signs. However the big cat did not keep its appointment.

At around 10 the sun was already very hot and we wanted to see if we can spot any raptors – so we made out way to the Bor Dam and parked. There was nothing to be seen except a Little Cormorant and a Cattle Egret. Hoping to get some cool breeze we started walking around the edge of water. Suddenly there was a commotion from round the corner and two birds emerged, the dominant call was definitely that of a Red Wattled Lapwing. As they came nearer I recognized the bird being chased but I was so astonished that all I could say was “Woh! woh!! woh!!” it was then Aditya and Rohit exclaimed from behind River Lapwing!!! It was indeed a River Lapwing that was being chased by a Red Wattled Lapwing. The bird landed at a distance and stayed there for enough time for all of us to get all the pictured that we wanted.

River Lapwing

The River Lapwing, Vanellus duvaucelii, is a lapwing species which breeds in Southeast Asia from northeastern India to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. It appears to be entirely sedentary. Formerly also called Spur-winged Lapwing^[2] The wing spur can very clearly be seen in the first picture.

[1] Accompanying me were Swati Sani, Tarun Balpande, Aditya Joshi, Rohan Chakravarty and Rohit Chakravarty
[2] Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Lapwing