Marbled teals found breeding in
Sindh
The Daily Dawn July 15, 2005
SUKKUR, July 14: The marbled teal, a globally threatened
waterfowl that visited and bred at the now dry Zanginawar Lake in
Balochistan till the 1980s, is nowadays breeding in the Deh Akro-II
Wildlife Sanctuary, Nawabshah, and few lakes along the Nara Canal in
Khairpur district. A group of about 30 pairs of the marbled teal (Marmaronetta
angusterostris) was observed in the Dang-i-wari Lake in the Nara Game
Reserve with 100 chicks during June and July by a Sindh Wildlife
Department survey team.
The teal’s present world population in estimated at 30-35,000.
A group of sub-adult marbled teals with
mother in the Dang-i-wari lake (Nara) ready for migrating back to colder
regions
Six nests with eggs and chicks of the
white tailed plover were also recorded at the Dang-i-wari and Jagir
lakes of the Nara Game Reserve.
Meanwhile, for the first time, breeding has been recorded in the Nara
sanctuary of the Brahminy starling or black-headed myna (Sturnus
pagodarum), reddish fawn below with a glossy black crown.
A pair of these rare birds was regularly observed by the Sindh Wildlife
Department staff from June and to July 10. It was found breeding in a
tamarix tree trunkhole (nest) with a clutch of four eggs of pale blue
colour.
The Brahminy starling, a rare summer
visitor to Sindh, outside its nest on a tamarix tree
The bird was occasionally observed
earlier, but this is the first time it has been found breeding in Sindh.
Credits:
Photographs and text by Hussain Bux
Bhaagat (Sindh Wildlife Department) and Abdul Razaque Khan
http://www.dawn.com/2005/07/15/nat31.htm
