Chennai: Birders R V Ramanan and his son Shreyas set out for a walk at Adyar estuary early this week with a goal in mind— to spot the Eurasian wryneck, which had been sighted multiple times. Instead, they encountered something rarer — the European bee-eater.Known for its striking colours and bright yellow throat, the bird is commonly seen across Europe, western Asia, and parts of Africa. Birders in Chennai say there has been no sighting of the bird here in the past few decades.“While blue-tailed bee-eaters are seen in Chennai, the European bee-eater is an extremely rare sighting,” says Ramanan, a member of Madras Naturalists’ Society. “The nearest sightings in the state were in Tirupur, Salem and Coimbatore. The bird has avoided even Pallikaranai, a favourite jaunt of several migratory birds.”The birders uploaded a photograph of the rare visitor to E-bird, a global database for birders, and checked with their peer groups to confirm the sighting. “The bird appeared to be a juvenile. We differentiated it from a common blue-tailed bee-eater by observing its broad dark trailing edge, completely yellow throat and pale blue-green plumage,” said Bharath Ravikumar, a birder who confirmed the sighting.They said it is hard to pinpoint a reason for its appearance. “It could either be the first such appearance for the bird. Or it could be that the number of birdwatchers has increased. There is always the possibility of one or two birds having escaped our gaze in the past,” said Bharath.The birders eventually spotted the Eurasian wryneck too, thanks to the bee-eater. “We were so occupied with the sighting, and only later realised that the wryneck was perched beneath the European bee-eater. So, in a way, the European bee-eater led us to the wryneck,” said Shreyas.
