Twitchers’ delight as two rare birds flock to Chandu Budhera after years

Gurgaon: The rare sighting of two white-winged tern birds and the endangered Indian skimmer at Chandu Budhera has swept a wave of excitement among bird watchers.
Both these birds are endemic to India, but rare to be spotted in the region.
Birder Kavi Nanda told TOI he was out with his camera and binoculars when he unexpectedly saw the two birds around 7.30am on Sunday. “The white-winged tern, usually found in coastal areas, is known for the way it alters its all-white plumage to black with stunning white wings during the breeding season. I spotted two of them today. It’s rare for this region,” Nanda said. He usually travels to different locations in Delhi-NCR on the weekends for a sight of feathered creatures.
“There are less than a dozen records between 1996 and 2017 for the white-winged tern (chlidonias leucopterus) seen in NCR. It’s usually difficult to see them when it is not their breeding season because their plumage is all white or grey like other tern species. I know of two confirmed records from Haryana — 2019, near Rohtak, and at Basai wetland in 2009,” he said. Nanda is also a member of the Delhi Bird society.
Asked about the Indian skimmer (rynchops albicollis), notified as an endangered species by the IUCN, he said the birds were common to Delhi-NCR until the 1960s.“There is one record from the Najafgarh Jheel last year and around 2-3 scattered records along the Yamuna in Delhi in the last two decades. Today, I spotted just one Indian skimmer,” Nanda said.
Birdwatchers said that the skimmer may have arrived from Madhya Pradesh. The bird flies at a low height, skimming the waters in wetlands and rivers to catch fish. Over the years, the bird’s population declined rapidly, now limited to a few thousand world over.
According to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the skimmer is now found only in India as a breeding bird, with an occasional sight in Bangladesh. Since both the species aren’t inland birds, spotting them in Chandu Budhera makes the sighting even more interesting. “They aren’t easily seen in this region,” said Pankaj Gupta of the Delhi Bird Society.