News Excerpt:
Black-necked Grebe sighted at Hokersar wetland for the first time.
About Black Necked Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis):
- This Grebe has beautiful golden tufts of feathers on its face, contrasting with its black head and neck.
- Grebes are diving waterbirds, feeding on small fish and aquatic invertebrates.
- It is a small gregarious species having a wide distribution from Europe through Asia, wintering in the southwestern Palearctic, east Asia, and east Africa.
- Furthermore, it breeds in southern Africa, southwest Canada, western USA and central Mexico.
- In India, its breeding has been reported from the Union Territory of Ladakh. During winters, the species migrates to the western Gangetic Plains, Gujarat, and central Nepal. Occasionally, it strays eastward to the eastern Assam Valley and Bangladesh, and southward to coastal Orissa and Pune, Maharashtra.
- This time the bird was sighted at Hokersar wetland, in Jammu and Kashmir, adding to its expanding range.
- Conservation status IUCN: Least Concern
About Hokersar Wetland:
- Hokersar (Hokera) is a natural perennial protected wetland reserve and a Ramsar site, also a winter wonderland and bird paradise.
- Some 4 lakh birds visited here this winter season from October to April.
- It is located in the northwest Himalayan biogeographic province of Kashmir, in Zainakote, 10 km northwest of Srinagar city, back of the snow-draped Pir Panchal and contagious to the Jhelum Basin.
- Birds like mallards, greylag geese, pochards, common tails, shoveler and pintail annually visit the region in winter.
- It is an important source of food, spawning ground and Nursery for fish, besides offering feeding and breeding grounds to a variety of water birds.
