The hill town of Valparai, on the Anamalai mountain ranges of the Western Ghats near Coimbatore, was filled with posters welcoming a unique visitor last week.

Tourists and local residents were amazed to see the posters -- that had the photograph of a slender bird with a slate-grey upper body and a yellow underbody and read – “A warm welcome to our beloved Grey wagtail. Thanks for travelling all the way from the Himalayas to our Valparai to feed on insects and to protect our ecosystem.”

Though the Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) makes a pan-India presence from September as it descends from the upper Himalayas post breeding, the arrival or return of the bird barely catches the attention of people except birders and nature enthusiasts.

But K. Selvaganesh, an English teacher, and a group of his present and former students from the hill station are exceptions, as they avidly wait for the distinctive call of the bird every September. “We have been welcoming the arrival of the Grey wagtail since 2015. As we could not conduct any event due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, the students formed a group named ‘Young Birders, Valparai’ and pasted posters across the town with the permission of the Municipal Commissioner of Valparai,” said Mr. Selvaganesh who works at the Government High School, Cinchona.

M. Surya, a former student of the school who is currently pursuing mechanical engineering, said that people were eager to know why they were pasting posters of a bird in the town. “Though people are familiar with seeing the bird, many of them did not know its name and its importance in the ecology. We were happy to tell them more about the bird,” said B. Byju, another young birder.

Scanning of a QR code on the posters -- that printed in Tamil and English -- will take one to an informative video on the Grey wagtail posted on the Instagram page of Young Birders, Valparai.

Insectivorous birds, the wagtails get the binomial name for frequently wagging their long tails.

“A single wagtail feeds on hundreds of insects a day, playing a vital role in the ecosystem. Even a common man can recognize the bird with its wagging tail. It is called Sambal vaalatti in Tamil,” said P. Jeganathan, a scientist with the rainforest research station of the Nature Conservation Foundation at Valparai.

According to Rajah Jayapal, Senior Principal Scientist at Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Grey wagtails breed near streams on the mountain ranges of the Himalayas, mostly on altitudes above 3,000 metres. “The Grey wagtail is a prominent bird in places like Ladakh. They move down by September and return for breeding in April-May. The bird is known for its clockwork precision and site fidelity as they seem to visit the same location at the same time every year, during their lifespan of about 10 years,” he said.