SUKKUR, July 14: The marbled teal, a globally threatened waterfowl that visited and bred at the now dry Zanginawar Lake in Balochistan till the 1980s, is nowadays breeding in the Deh Akro-II Wildlife Sanctuary, Nawabshah, and few lakes along the Nara Canal in Khairpur district. A group of about 30 pairs of the marbled teal (Marmaronetta angusterostris) was observed in the Dang-i-wari Lake in the Nara Game Reserve with 100 chicks during June and July by a Sindh Wildlife Department survey team.

The teal’s present world population in estimated at 30-35,000.

Six nests with eggs and chicks of the white tailed plover were also recorded at the Dang-i-wari and Jagir lakes of the Nara Game Reserve.

Meanwhile, for the first time, breeding has been recorded in the Nara sanctuary of the Brahminy starling or black-headed myna (Sturnus pagodarum), reddish fawn below with a glossy black crown.

A pair of these rare birds was regularly observed by the Sindh Wildlife Department staff from June and to July 10. It was found breeding in a tamarix tree trunkhole (nest) with a clutch of four eggs of pale blue colour.

The bird was occasionally observed earlier, but this is the first time it has been found breeding in Sindh.

— Photographs and text by Hussain Bux Bhaagat (Sindh Wildlife Department) and Abdul Razaque Khan.