Photo: Shivaram Subramaniam. The duo spotted a female specimen of the species on the morning of December 21, 2016, at Vasai in Palghar district of Maharashtra. What Dr. Ghadi initially thought to be a Greater Crested Grebe was soon dismissed on further observation through photographs and behavior.
“We immediately called Sachin Main who is a leading authority in the field and uploaded the images on Ask Id's of Indian Birds , a Facebook group, created exclusively for helping with bird identification, as it lacked the big crest of a Grebe. Advait Marathe first predicted the possibility of it being a Red-breasted Merganser female which was later confirmed by Sachin Main on visiting the spot. Later it was found that the same bird was sighted by Vinod Varma, a senior birder a week ago who unfortunately couldn't confirm the details," said Dr. Ghadi. This individual is believed to have strayed away from its regular wintering destination, possibly in Pakistan and ended up here.
The Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator, a fish-eating duck, breeds in large parts of the northern hemisphere including the North America, Greenland, Iceland, Northern Europe and Central Asia. During the winter season, they migrate southwards to Mexico, Central Europe, Mediterranean and even Iran and Pakistan. Never before have these birds known to have migrated to India to winter. There have been obscure old records of the sighting of this bird in India, once in 1889 and other in 1961, both from West Bengal, both of which cannot be supported by any authentic documentation. So, officially, this sighting from 2016 is the first of its kind.
These charismatic birds exhibit rather striking sexual dimorphism during the breeding season when the males sport metallic-green heads with messy crests. A female is relatively duller and appears more or less similar to males during the off-breeding period with blackish-brown upper parts, white patches on the wings and a rusty brown head. Males sport a crest on their heads. They are considered to be the fastest fliers among ducks and have been known to reach speeds up to 80 miles per hour.
Photo: Shivaram Subramaniam. Shivaram Subramaniam, a well-known wildlife photographer, whose images of the Red-breasted Merganser he sighted at Vasai you see here tells us, “I had not even heard of this bird species before. When one of my friends woke me up early telling me excitedly about this rare sighting, I jumped at the chance and got to see and photograph this special individual."
