New bird species discovered in Nepal

Kathmandu, May 24: A new bird species, Lesser Grey Shrike (Lanius minor), has been recorded for the first time in Nepal. The bird was discovered at Shuklaphnata National Park.

Record of this new species was confirmed on Monday by the experts associated with the Nepal Bird Record Committee of the Nepalese Ornithological Union. The committee comprises Nepal’s leading field ornithologists and scientists from various organisations.

The sighting of the new bird was made during regular wildlife monitoring and research conducted by Shuklaphanta National Park (ShNP) and the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC-SCP), said Laxmi Raj Joshi, in-charge of the NTNC-SCP project.

At 4:13 PM on May 13, 2023, Dev Raj Joshi, a wildlife technician of NTNC-SCP, first observed the bird at Kalapani in the northern part of ShNP in Kanchanpur district.

The observed location is a river floodplain dominated by Saccharum spontaneum and Acacia catechu vegetation. The bird was found collecting food from the ground and feeding near an electricity transmission line.

The distinguishing features of the Lesser Grey Shrike include its characteristic plumage, extensive black on the forehead, lores, and facial mask that extends to the nape side, as well as its light-peach colour belly and underparts.

Prominent national and international bird experts, including Dr. Hem Sagar Baral and Carol Inskipp, reviewed the submission of the finding and confirmed the species as new to Nepal.

Dr. Baral, a noted ornithologist and the country director for the Zoological Society of London, said that the bird was confirmed to be new to Nepal with extensive verification and that its presence in the country was unexpected. This bird has a rare occurrence and has been rarely cited in the entire Indian subcontinent.

“Global climate patterns and the effects of periodic climate cycles, such as El Niño and La Niña, might have played an important role in the distri bution of this bird species,” Dr. Baral said.

For now, this bird can be considered a vagrant species in Nepal. Vagrant birds are those that are found in areas where they are not typically found, driven by climatic conditions such as storms, rains, winds, and drought, Dr. Baral added.

The Lesser Grey Shrike is a long-distance migrant and is distributed from the Iberian Peninsula to Siberia, Central Asia to Africa. The nearest and most recent record from the western Nepal border was in Ludhiana, Punjab, where the bird was recorded in 2020.

The bird belongs to the shrike family Laniidae. It breeds in South and Central Europe and Western Asia during summer and migrates to its winter quarters in southern Africa in early autumn, returning in spring.

The evidence of the new species was first consulted with Kishore Kumar Mehta, Chief Conservation Officer of ShNP, and Laxmi Raj Joshi, in-charge of NTNC-SCP project, who submitted the findings for review and confirmation by bird experts.

The Nepali name for this bird species has yet to be determined. With this new record, the number of birds found in Nepal has reached 892.