Sanctuary | Species Focus
By Vaishali Rawat
Attempting to balance my
data sheets, my fi eld equipment, and
myself while standing on the back of a
moving vehicle, I once again try to use
my binoculars to scan the landscape
for signs of wildlife. It’s a rough ride
under the scorching sun in the Thar
desert grasslands, when our driver
suddenly steps on the brakes, halts
and jumps out. He points animatedly
towards a red-crowned Ker tree a few
hundred metres to our left. “Godavan
hai udhar!” (The bustard is over there!).
Sure enough, I see two distant white
stalks (their necks) purposefully
bobbing through the shrublands of
Desert National Park.
It’s the last day of the survey of
the Thar landscape for the Great Indian
Bustard (GIB), and this is my very fi rst
sighting. We’ve spotted other denizens
of the desert – a desert fox with its
pups, a staggering array of raptors, a
few Indian foxes and antelopes, but
this is a precious sighting – two Great
Indian Bustards proudly patrolling
their savannah. The endangered birds
stand out, with their proud gait, long
white necks and brown crowns. One
suddenly dips down into the grasses
and reappears with lunch (a spiny-tailed
lizard Saara hardwickii) struggling in its
beak. We watch them move in and out
of our vision through the bushes for a
few minutes then, contented, we move
on in the hope of sighting more.
In March 2017, I participated as a
fi eld volunteer for the annual survey SHAILESH GUPTAExtinction inevitable?
GREAT INDIAN BUSTARDS