This
is potentially, a very exciting ornithological event for Pakistan. Whenever a
new species is added to a county’s list of bird species birders will flock to
the scene. However, this is unlikely to be the case in Pakistan as there are
very few birders and other than this Blog there is no real means of publishing
the event through a birding grapevine. I will just caveat this claim slightly;
the records of birds recorded in Pakistan I have access to (other than sightings
I have recorded personally) end in 2008. I have no idea who or which
organisation is responsible for coordinating records of birds seen in Pakistan
or even whether there is a Pakistan Bird Records Committee that scrutinises
claims of rare birds within the country. I have been in contact with the
co-founder and chairman of the Pakistan Bird Watchers’ Club of Pakistan but he
is now based in the United States and the Club’s website has not been updated
for several years. However, I am a member of the Oriental Bird Club (OBC) and I
have already shared details of HGS’ discovery with them. So, in typical birding
vernacular I will retell the story of this amazing discovery:
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| First-summer Little Gull (Right) Sam's Photography |
Islbirder
and HGS had agreed to meet at Rawal Lake Eastern Shoreline at 0500 hours on
Sunday 26 May 2013. However, Islbirder’s alarm clock bursting into life at 0400
hours, it’s a female Mallard quacking by the way, coincided with a flash of
lightning and a very loud clap of thunder. It was pouring with rain that was
accompanied by what appeared to be gale force gusts of wind (well as close as
it ever gets to a gale in Islamabad). The thought of being out in an electrical
storm with a carbon fibre tripod did not seem a sensible idea. OK you’ve seen
straight through my transparency. Following a quick email to HGS along the
lines of “birding cancelled due storm” I re-joined Mrs Islbirder in bed.
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| First-summer Little Gull Sam's Photography |
No
such lethargy was displayed by the intrepid HGS. He got up, waited for he storm
to abate, temporarily, anyway and headed for the lakeside. He picked out some
LITTLE STINT and found the WHISKERED TERN flock that has now dwindled from some
200 birds to a mere 30 and it won’t be long before they move on. HGS noted
three gulls; a couple of BLACK HEADED GULL and one much smaller but with a
pretty obvious zigzag pattern on its upper wings when it flew. HGS said that
all gulls with a similar pattern of upper wing ran through his mind. Sabine’s
Gull, Kittiwake and Little Gull. HGS was pretty confident of the latter and as
the rain returned nipped home to send an email to Islbirder. Sadly, the latter
remained completely oblivious still checking the back of his eyelids. When
eventually awoken by a COMMON MYNA tap dancing on the bedroom window your
sleeping author arose. Islbirder still not having read HGS’ email received a
call from RMK suggesting a visit to the Eastern shoreline of Rawal Lake as the
weather had now cleared and it was merely a cool 38 degrees outside. Having
cleared his eyes of a longer than expected sleep Islbirder read HGS’ email that
suggested he had seen a LITTLE GULL at Rawal Lake. Any lassitude soon
disappeared, as Islbirder became a frenzy of activity dashing around the house
collecting the various birding accoutrements. By the time Islbirder and RMK
reached the lakeside it was about 1130 hours, it was hot and the sun was high
and emitting a harsh light that would prove a real test of RMK’s photographic
skills.
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| First-summer Little Gull Sam's Photography |
It
took a few seconds to latch on to the LITTLE GULL that was on a stony island
just offshore and was with two rather scruffy looking BLACK-HEADED GULL.
Ironically, the LITTLE GULL was standing directly in front of a LITTLE TERN,
itself an Islamabad rarity that had been present for a week. Almost
immediately, HGS returned to the marsh and we congratulated him on his find and
thanked him for the heads up.
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| First-summer Little Gull Sam's Photography |
We
grilled the LITTLE GULL (not literally I might add. It’s birding parlance for
watched it intensely) for the next couple of hours and we aged it as a
First-summer bird. This meaning that it would have hatched from an egg during
last year’s breeding season, had lost some of its immature plumage and was now
the rather (sadly it has to be said) scruffy bird in front of us. I will not
regurgitate my contemporaneous notes here (I will leave that for a record
assessment committee) but I will say that the LITTLE GULL was dwarfed by the
Black-headed Gulls with it and when they and the WHISKERED and LITTLE TERN all
flew together, silhouetted against the light the LITTLE GULL was difficult to
pick out from amongst the terns as it flew very like them. We did notice the
zigzag pattern of the upper wings, the plain grey mantle that had lost the
black saddle of immature plumage. We saw the black terminal tail band on undertail that was not present on the upper tail. The tail band was divided by white
central tail feathers and we noticed the dark reddish legs and the delicate all
dark bill. The black cap of the adult
was starting to materialise but was diffused and nowhere near complete. I could
go on but I will let RMK’s photos do the talking. Again I am flabbergasted as
to how he is able to obtain such amazing pictures in the face of such lighting
adversity.
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| First-summer Little Gull Sam's Photography |
Once
again thanks to HGS for this amazing discovery that is likely to become part of
Pakistani birding history. Unless, of course, someone reads this and informs us
they get Little Gulls on their bird feeders in Rawalpindi! We were pleased to
show HGS the LITTLE TERN, which was a Pakistan tick for him, so we kind of
repaid the favour (?).
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| First-summer Little Gull Sam's Photography |
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| First-summer Little Gull (Flying) Sam's Photography |
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| First-summer Little Gull (Lower bird) Sam's Photography |
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| First-summer Little Gull (Lower bird) Sam's Photography |
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| First-summer Little Gull (Flying) Sam's Photography |
Oh,
by the way, we also saw five PHEASANT-TAILED JACANA feeding alongside the
Korang River and a beautiful INDIAN ROLLER performed a flyby. With my Pakistan
Bird List now knocking on 350 I wonder what will be the next new bird that we
find in this most amazing country.
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| Spot the Five Pheasant-tailed Jacana Sam's Photography |
Please note that RMK did not want me to publish this (he is a perfectionist) but five Pheasant-tailed Jacana is a pretty impressive record for Rawal Lake. Pyhala mentions three was the previous maximum in his 2000 publication "Birds of Islamabad Status and Seasonality".
