Elusive warbler spotted in Ladakh, its first official sighting in 46 years
The insect-like call was proof that one of the most elusive bird species they had come looking for was there.
Visual proof came soon enough, making July 15 the day when a confirmed sighting of the long-billed bush warbler would be recorded after 46 years. The tiny brown bird was trilling from a thicket in Kargil's Suru Valley.
The last time the bird (Locustella Major) was seen was also in Ladakh in 1979, when a group of birders from Southampton University were on a tour (1977-80) to chronicle the region's avian fauna.
Between 1979 and now, only one more sighting of the long-billed bush warbler was documented when ornithologist James Eaton spotted it in Naltar Valley of Gilgit-Baltistan in 2023.
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The current expedition to Ladakh by five birders – Harish Thangaraj, Lt Gen Bhupesh Goyal, Manjula Desai, Rigzin Nubu and Irfan Jeelani -- was planned specifically to spot this rare warbler.
Team leader Thangaraj told TOI the group "has years and years of experience sighting birds" and "what we are now looking for are 'lost birds' – that were spotted decades ago but were never seen since".
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"There are more such birds on our list," he added.
Earlier this year, in Feb, the group had made another expedition in search of the bird but failed to spot it. "We searched in Gurez and Tulail valleys at altitudes between 2,400m and 2,800m. But it yielded no results, possibly because of altitude mismatch," Thangaraj said, referring to the Gilgit-Baltistan sighting, which was at a higher reach.
After the first unsuccessful attempt, the group stepped up research and got in touch with Eaton for an insight into the warbler's habitat.
It was the Malaysia-based ornithologist's knowledge that steered them on the right path – in this case, near terraced fields surrounded by rumex and gooseberry shrubs at Sankoo in Suru Valley.
"Eventually, the bird was found in a willow amidst terraced fields. It's the first time the warbler has been seen on a willow, which will now be added to its known habitats," Thangaraj told TOI.
At 3,200 metres, this is also the highest recorded altitude at which the bird has been seen.
Classified as 'near threatened' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), long-billed bush warblers were commonly seen in Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan till the 1930s.
In the decades since, the area received very little attention, and birding expeditions were sparse. In 2015, Eaton wrote, birder Shashank Dalvi sighted two warblers in Suru, but it was too brief for him to take a picture. "Expansion of habitation and settlements in the lower altitudes, combined with climate change, could be pushing the birds to go higher up," Thangaraj said.
Lt Gen Goyal said he hopes the sighting will set the birding community aflutter. "I believe this expedition will inspire birders to find lost birds," he said.
Pankaj Gupta, a Delhi Bird Society member who was not part of the expedition, said the "rediscovery" of the bird is "nothing short of extraordinary". "It reminds us how much remains hidden in our fragmented landscapes, and how urgent it is to protect these last remaining pockets of wilderness," Gupta said.
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