I ruled out Western Reef Egret Egretta gularis after referring to Grimmett et al (2011) as itrsquos dark morph has a whitish throat and besides it looks more like a Little Egret E garzetta An earlier record exists of a grey Cattle Egret from Dona Paula Goa India on 19 November 1995 (Willoughby 2001) Singh (2013) spotted a melanistic bird at Alinganagar village in Jharkhand There seem to be no more cases of colour aberration in this species from India (Mahabal et al 2016) though these have been noted in other countries (Siegfried 1971 Willoughby 2001 Scheres 2002 Carr 2015) It still has not been established whether a dark morph of Cattle Egret exists like it does for Little Egret in spite of the reports of birds in various shades of grey from all over the world

I retrieved relevant literature from the online lsquoBibliography of South Asian Ornithologyrsquo (Pittie 2017)

ReferencesCarr P 2015 Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis in the British Indian Ocean Territory where did

Pinky come from Birding ASIA 23 54ndash55Grimmett R Inskipp C amp Inskipp T 2011 Birds of the Indian Subcontinent 2nd ed

London Oxford University Press amp Christopher Helm Pp 1ndash528Mahabal A van Grouw H Sharma R M amp Thakur S 2016 How common is

albinism really Colour aberrations in Indian birds reviewed Dutch Birding 38 301ndash309

Pittie A 2017 Bibliography of South Asian Ornithology URL httpwwwsouthasiaornithin [Accessed on 20102017]

Scheres W 2002 A partly melanistic Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis A Rocha Portugal Observatory Report 2002 15 httpwwwarochaorgpt-en413-DSYversiondefaultpartAttachmentDatadatapt-report-2002pdf

Siegfried W R 1971 Plumage and moult of the Cattle Egret Ostrich 9 (Suppl) 153ndash164

Singh S 2013 Probable first sighting of dark morph of Eastern Cattle-Egret (sic) Bubulcus coromandus from Lakhimpur kheri Uttar Pradesh India Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 109 (3) 199 (2012)

Willoughby P J 2001 Melanistic Cattle Egret British Birds 94 390ndash392

ndash Leons Mathew AbrahamM R Mallik Arcade 3rd Floor Near Flyover Panjabari Road

Six mile Khanapara Guwahati 781022 Assam IndiaE-mail leonsreptargmailcom

Received on 26 October 2017

A Falcated Duck Mareca falcata x Gadwall M strepera hybrid at Kaziranga National Park Assam IndiaA male hybrid between a Falcated Duck Mareca falcata and Gadwall M strepera was spotted at 1647 hours on 25 March 2016 in Kaziranga National Park (henceforth KNP) Assam India The bird was spotted [38] in an open wetland (2661degN 9334degE) belonging to the central range (Kohora) of KNP At the time of observation the bird was feeding in a shallow portion of the wetland near a mud bank amongst a group of Gadwalls Eurasian Wigeons M penelope and a few Indian Spot-billed Ducks Anas poecilorhyncha

Both Falcated Ducks and Gadwalls are winter migrants to the north-eastern Indian Subcontinent (Grimmett et al 2011 eBird 2018a eBird 2018b) including KNP where we have recorded them in previous seasons Falcated Duck x Gadwall is one of the most common waterfowl hybrids found in the wild because they are sister species (Johnson amp Sorenson 1999) There are a number of instances since 1918 wherein Falcated Duck x Gadwall hybrids or presumed hybrids have been reported from the country indicating that they are regular in our region too (Table 1)

Table 1 Reports of hybrid Falcated Duck x Gadwall from IndiaSite Date ReferencePathshala Assam April 1917 Robinson (1918)Harike Punjab December 2003 Anonymous (2003)Asan Barrage Uttarakhand January 2008 Anonymous (2008)Fulbari West Bengal January 2009 Tharkuta (2009)Maguri Beel Assam February 2015 Sengupta (2015)Maguri Beel Assam December 2015 Phukan (2015)Pobitora Assam February 2016 Das (2016)Kaziranga Assam March 2016 This paperDighal Haryana December 2016 Ghosh (2016)

Hybrid combination putative

AcknowledgementsWe would like to express our gratitude to Bubul Borah for providing us transport into KNP and helping with the requisite permits and Dave Appleton for confirming the identification of the bird

ReferencesAnonymous 2003 Falcated Duck Anas falcata (December 2003 mystery bird)

Delhibird-The Northern India Bird Network Website URL httpspeciesguidedelhibirdnetinternal9falcated_duckhtm [Accessed on 22 November 2017]

Anonymous 2008 Falcated Duck Hybrid (presumed) January 2008 Assan Barrage northern India Website URL httpwwwharrisbirdscomFalcated20Duck20Hybridhtm [Accessed on 22 November 2017]

Das A K 2016 Falcated Duck Anas falcata hybrid Website URL httpwwworientalbirdimagesorgsearchphpBird_ID=216ampBird_Image_ID=115716 [Accessed on 9 January 2018]

eBird 2018a Maps Gadwall (Marcera strepera) Website URL httpebirdorgebirdindiamapgadwal [Accessed on 15 January 2018]

eBird 2018b Maps Falcated Duck (Marcera falcata) Website URL httpebirdorgebirdindiamapfalduc [Accessed on 15 January 2018]

Ghosh S 2016 Falcated Duck x Gadwall Anas falcata x Anas streperamdashHybrid Website URL httpwwworientalbirdimagesorgsearchphpBird_ID=216ampBird_Image_ID=130675 [Accessed on 9 January 2018]

Grimmett R Inskipp C amp Inskipp T 1998 Birds of the Indian Subcontinent 1st ed London Christopher Helm A amp C Black Pp 1ndash888

Johnson K P amp Sorenson M D 1999 Phylogeny and biography of dabbling ducks (genus Anas) A comparison of molecular and morphological evidence The Auk 116 (3) 792ndash805

Phukan P J 2015 Falcated Duck x Gadwall Anas falcata x Anas streperamdashMale Website URL httpwwworientalbirdimagesorgsearchphpBird_ID=216ampBird_Image_ID=113352 [Accessed on 9 January 2018]

Robinson H C 1918 On two abnormal specimens of ducks in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India Records of the Indian Museum 15 47ndash48

Sengupta S 2015 Falcated Duck x Gadwall Anas falcata x Anas streperamdash1st winter male Website URL httpwwworientalbirdimagesorgsearchphpBird_ID=216ampBird_Image_ID=102946 [Accessed on 9 January 2018]

Tharkuta A 2009 Falcated Duck x Gadwall Anas falcata x Anas streperamdashMale

38 Male Falcated Duck X Gadwall hybrid

Rajarshi Chakraborty

58 Indian BIRDS Vol 14 No 2 (Publ 28 March 2018)

Website URL httpwwworientalbirdimagesorgsearchphpBird_ID=216ampBird_Image_ID=113351 [Accessed on 9 January 2018]

ndash Oishik Roy Tushar Mouli Chakraborti amp Rajarshi ChakrabortyOishik Roy 3940 Dumdum park Park Tower Flat No 3 Kolkata 700055 West Bengal India

E-mail oroynewgmailcom

Tushar Mouli Chakraborti Department of Geology Presidency University 861 College Street Kolkata 700073 West Bengal India

E-mail tushargeo43gmailcom [Corresponding author]

Rajarshi Chakraborty WWF-India Western Arunachal Landscape ProgrammeTezpur Assam 784001 India E-mail rajarshichagmailcom

Received on 23 November 2017

Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl Bubo nipalensis feeding on Indian Flying Fox Pteropus giganteusThe Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl Bubo nipalensis is a resident species in Uttarakhand (Rasmussen amp Anderton 2012) and occurs in the lower Himalayas upto c 2100 m asl (Ali amp Ripley 1981) MS has recorded its presence throughout the year in Corbett Tiger Reserve (MS pers obsv) Its habitat has been described as lsquodense evergreen and moist deciduous forest usually near water montane wet temperate forest and riparian gallery forestrsquo and that it lsquohunts also in scrub bamboo jungle thin deciduous forest sometimes edges of clearingsrsquo (del Hoyo et al 1999)The species is lsquolargely nocturnal spending the day dozing on a densely foliaged bough in the forest but sometimes on the move and even hunting during daytimersquo (Koumlnig et al 1999) It has been recorded taking fair-sized mammals birds and reptiles (Resmussen amp Anderton 2012) A formidable hunter it is recorded taking Kalij Pheasant Lophura leucomelanos and Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus from their night-time roosts (del Hoyo et al 1999) Kannan (1995) recorded it preying on the Indian giant squirrel Ratufa indica and Nandini (2005) found it feeding on an Indian chevrotain Moschiola indica Its diet is described consisting of game birds including pheasants jackals hare fawn of barking deer lizards snakes and fish (Ali amp Ripley 1981)

Garjia Village (2947degN 7915degE 437m asl) is located on the banks of River Kosi on the eastern boundary of Corbett Tiger Reserve (Uttarakhand India) The village is surrounded by mature moist mixed and semi-deciduous forests dominated by sal Shoria robusta on its western side and a narrow stretch of river valley on its eastern with similar mature forest habitat on the opposite bank of the river On 12 January 2018 at c 1720 hrs Naveen Chardra Singh (verbal comm) informed MN about a large owl being seen in a tree by the side of the road at Garjia MN photographed the owl at c 1730 hrs [39 40] It was holding

a dead Indian flying fox Pteropus giganteus in its talons and was feeding on it The owl was identified as Spot-bellied Eagle Owl based on such features as large size large black-and-white horizontal ear-tufts large yellow beak fully feathered tarsii and prominent spotting on the underparts

As per del Hoyo et al (1999) bats are incidental prey items for many owls but except for one species owls do not specialise in preying upon bats We could not locate any previous records of the Spot-bellied Eagle Owl feeding on bats and hence this note

AcknowledgementsMN wants to thank Naveen Chandra Singh for informing him about the owl and MS wants to thank Rakesh Bhatt for bringing the record to his knowledge To retrieve relevant literature we searched the online lsquoBibliography of South Asian Ornithologyrsquo (Pittie 2017)

ReferencesAli S Ripley S D 1981 Handbook of the birds of India and Pakistan together with

those of Bangladesh Nepal Bhutan and Ceylon Stone Curlews to Owls 2nd (Hardback) ed Vol 3 of 10 vols Delhi (Sponsored by Bombay Natural History Society) Oxford University Press Pp indashxvi 1ndash327

del Hoyo J Elliott A amp Sargatal J (eds) 1999 Handbook of the birds of the world Volume 5 Barn-owls to Hummingbirds 1st ed Vol 5 of 17 vols Barcelona Lynx Edicions Pp 1ndash759

Kannan R 1995 Forest Eagle Owl (Bubo nipalensis Hodgson) - a predator of the Indian Giant Squirrel (Ratufa indica) Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 91 (3) 454

Koumlnig C Weick F amp Becking J-H 1999 Owls A guide to the owls of the world Robertsbridge UK New Haven Pica Press Yale University Press Pp 1ndash462

Nandini R 2005 Predation by Forest Eagle-Owl Bubo nipalensis on Mouse Deer Moschiola meminna Indian Birds 1 (5) 119ndash120

Pittie A2018 Bibliography of South Asian Ornithology URL httpwwwsouthasiaornithin [Accessed on 15 January 2018]

Rasmussen P C amp Anderton J C 2012 Birds of South Asia the Ripley guide 2nd ed 2 vols Washington DC and Barcelona Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions Pp 1ndash378 1ndash683

ndash Manoj Sharma [MS] amp Mohd Nafees [MN]Manoj Sharma Village Shankarpur Ramnagar 244715 District Nainital Uttarakhand India

E-mail treeswiftgmailcomMohd Nafees Village amp P O Dhikuli Ramnagar 244715 District Nainital Uttarakhand India

E-mail corbettnafeesgmailcomReceived on 21 January 2018

39 Spot-bellied Eagle Owl feeding on an Indian flying fox

40 Spot-bellied Eagle Owl feeding on an Indian flying fox

Pics

Moh

d N

afee

s

Correspondence 59