The great knot with the tag on its leg. Pic/Avinash Bhagat
Earlier this month, a Mumbai birder spotted a great knot bird with a radio tag on its leg at Akshi beach in Alibaug. It has come to light that the bird had travelled all the way from China and had been banded on August 26 at Yalujiang by Bai Qingquan.
Birder Avinash Bhagat posted on Facebook recently that he was lucky to spot the endangered bird during his birding trip. "A tagged Great Knot bird sighted at Akshi beach during our visit this winter. This bird has been tagged in Yalujiang, China, as per colour flagging protocol on East Asian-Australian flyway."
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According to the website indianbirds.thedynamicnature.com, the great knot bird species is listed as 'endangered' by IUCN and is distributed in areas like northeast Russia, coastal Australia ,southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and eastern Arabian Peninsula.
Birder Sagar Mahajan said, "The great knot is a winter visitor to some Indian coasts. It is pretty uncommon to sight this bird because of its scarce distribution here. The bird is endangered owing to reclamation of its stopover sites. The sighting of a tagged bird is a good indication as it implies that they've successfully completed one-way migration."
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The great knot (Calidris tenuirostris) measures 25 to 30 cm in length and weighs 115 to 250 gm. The wingspan is 55 to 65 cm. The species does not normally occur in forests but in altitudes between 0 to 1,600 metres. The artificial ecosystems and habitats of these species include coastal water storage tanks and coastal aquaculture facilities. The natural ecosystems and habitats of these great knot species include subarctic grasslands, tundra grasslands, large lakes of Arctic region, marine lakes, mudflats, shorelines, estuaries and tide pools.
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