drprasanna
Active member
Hi, I'm from maharashtra, India. We had northern pintails visiting our neighborhood lake and were seen in large numbers last month. Now in the middle of the winter they have disappeared. I wanted to know what went wrong.
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Northern pintail (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter drprasanna
- Start date
MJB
Well-known member
Hi, DR,
Are the pintails regular annual visitors to that Lake? I ask because if their departure this time is not typical, then the cause of their departure may be local, eg: a sustained increase in disturbance; a shortage of submerged vegetation on which, as dabbling ducks, they feed; unseasonal rainfall in adjacent areas, making them more attractive.
It may just be something to do with the gradual beginning of the return migration (there have been quite a few posts on BirdForum in the past few days of such movements beginning at higher latitudes; however, with the Himalayas north of Maharashtra, it is possible that the birds need to go to areas with abundant food so that they are fit enough to take their normal lengthy routes round that obstacle).
I was in Gujurat in early December, seeing pintail amongst other ducks, and there was some opinion that these birds start moving north at the end of January to mid-February.
MJB
