The Pied Avocet-A Winter Visitor at the Basai Wetland

The Pied Avocet is a migratory bird that visits the Basai Wetland during the winter months. It is a white wader with bluish-black long legs. What marks it apart from other birds like the Black-winged Stilt is its slender but long upturned beak. While feeding it pokes its beak into the water swinging its beak to and fro in order to catch its meal which includes fish and crustaceans. 

But then that was just about its appearance! What is fascinating about this bird is that it travels so far. Mostly a resident of the Rann of Kutch and Balochistan, it migrates to northeastern India during the winter season. According to an entry in Wikipedia, 'The pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) is a large black and white wader in the avocet and stilt family, Recurvirostridae. They breed in temperate Europe and across the Palearctic to Central Asia then on to the Russian Far East. It is a migratory species and most winter in Africa or southern Asia.'-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_avocet

The Basai Wetland in Gurugram (Gurgaon), Haryana, India is an important biodiversity hotspot that supports a large number of migratory birds including the Common Starling and Bar-headed Geese flying in from all over the world! Today, when I visited the Basai Wetland, I was able to spot quite a few of the Pied Avocet birds feeding in the shallows. Unfortunately, I was not able to get close enough to get very clear photographs of them. 

Research data suggests that the Pied Avocet population might be in a state of moderate decline in India. No wonder this is because of the constant fight for space between man and birds, and also because of the disappearance of important Biodiversity hotspots, thanks to the need for more space to build residential complexes. Incidentally, The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) is applicable to the Pied Avocet birds in India.

According to an article appearing in the Guardian in April in the year 2012, "They came back from the brink of extinction in Britain in the mid-19th century and colonised the beaches of East Anglia that were closed during the war."-https://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2012/apr/15/4

Another article appearing in the New Indian Express states, "Places like Kelambakkam backwaters or Pallikaranai marshlands have stopped attracting a number of varieties they used to. According to seasoned bird-watchers, ducks like garganey and common teal, another type of wader called the pied avocet are among the ones that have gone missing."-

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2020/jan/28/number-of-bird-species-on-decline-say-watchers-2095431.html