Duck of Ladakh snows visits Tricity after 16 winters

CHANDIGARH: A wild duck, an ace fish hunter of the high snows and fast mountain torrents, has once again surfaced in the Tricity region far down from its breeding grounds in the Ladakh lakes. A lone, female Common Merganser or Goosander was photographed by Chandigarh birder, Amit Bhatara, on a stream tumbling down from the Shivaliks at Thapli in Panchkula district on Monday, a good 16 years after the last regional sighting of this species at Sukhna Lake.
A pair of mergansers was observed for two winters (2000-2001 and 2001-2002) at the regulator-end of Sukhna Lake by this correspondent, constituting the first record of the species in the Inter-State Capital Region (ISCR) encompassing an area within a 50 km radius from Chandigarh. In those years, the Sukhna was silted up at the regulator-end and a maze of secluded marshes and ponds partitioned by reeds/grasses provided an excellent habitat for wintering migratory waterfowl. The merganser, a hardy duck which can survive the harsh winters of high altitudes, is a very rare migrant to North-west Indian lowlands.
A specialised fish hunter unlike most other duck species, mergansers also eat molluscs, worms, crustaceans, amphibians and insect larvae. And, much like tourists loving the rock perches amid the swift Beas near Manali, mergansers prefer fast-flowing streams dotted with boulders where they can sit and rest. The merganser is also known to flow down, twisting round and round in the rapids like ace white river rafters! "The merganser at Thapli is a lone bird and possibly a vagrant, which has somehow wandered far down from its wintering grounds and clan. This is a bird of fast mountain streams and upland wetlands. I think it will be able to finds its way back to its summer home in the high altitudes because these birds have a strong homing instinct," Dr Vibhu Prakash, principal scientist, BNHS, based in Pinjore said.
Other foothill records of the merganser include sightings from the Corbett National Park. Mergansers are more frequently encountered in North-east India. "The merganser female is a very attractive bird, unlike the drab females of other duck species. Though confined to high-altitudes, a few mergansers do come deeper into the plains from the Himalayas in winter. I have observed mergansers as far down as the river Mahanadi in Orissa. Mergansers were also observed regularly during our winter avian studies at Pong Dam in Himachal Pradesh. The merganser is a fish-hunting duck much like a cormorant," Dr S Balachandran, co-author of the seminal volume, "Indian Bird Migration Atlas", BNHS deputy director and head of the BNHS Bird Migration Study Project, told TOI. The merganser's bill is armed with toothy, serrated edges like a fruit knife to grasp slippery fish and the bird even gobbles ducklings of other species and small duck species. An expert diver under ice sheets in Ladakh, mergansers also join ranks to hunt down fish. "Often hunts by cooperative effort like cormorants, a flock of mergansers swimming in a semi-circle from bank to bank across a rapid, rippling stream herding small fish into the less turbulent shallows near the banks --- dashing and splashing in the white water in pursuit and diving energetically after the quarry," wrote Dr Salim Ali, the legendary birdman.