Kolkata: In what ornithologists are describing as a very unusual sighting, a Eurasian eagle-owl, one of the world’s largest owl species, has been photographed for the first time in the foothills of Eastern Himalayas, near Buxa Tiger Reserve in north Bengal. This could also be the first photographic record of the species from eastern India.Veteran birder Biswapriya Rahut, along with co-birder Samudra Sengupta, photographed the bird on Saturday during an ongoing state-wide owl survey jointly conducted by the Birdwatchers’ Society (BWS) and WWF-India. Rahut is one of the founders of BWS.The Eurasian eagle-owl is primarily associated with the Western Himalayas, particularly Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh and adjoining high-altitude landscapes. It inhabits rocky, mountainous and semi-arid terrain, including parts of the Tibetan Plateau, where it has been recorded at elevations ranging from nearly 3,000 metres to over 4,500 metres.Ashwin Viswanathan, scientist and senior project manager at the Nature Conservation Foundation, said the species has also been recorded in Bhutan, which lies along the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. “But in eastern India, this is in all likelihood the first sighting and photographic record. Recent weather disturbances in Bhutan could have played a role in its appearance near Buxa,” Viswanathan said.The possibility of weather-related displacement is being explored as Buxa’s northern boundary runs along the Bhutan border. A glacial lake outburst flood at Shintaphu Lake in Bhutan’s Gasa on Oct 29 released around 7.4 million cubic metres of water into the Mo Chhu and Sankosh river systems. The flood wave travelled downstream towards north Bengal and lower Assam.Rahut pointed out that there was an earlier record of the species from Arunachal Pradesh. “In Nov 2006, ornithologist Rishad Naoroji recorded a calling pair at Larjup, between Chander and Tungri in Arunachal. It was documented as an isolated winter record,” he said.BWS founder Sujan Chatterjee said the ongoing survey, the first initiative of its kind in India, would help establish baseline data on owl species, their abundance and distribution across Bengal’s different habitats. Undertaken under WWF-India’s Raptor Conservation Programme, it has so far recorded 542 checklists across 11 zones in Bengal.
