Radio tagged Amur falcon 'chiulon' arrives in Manipur's Tamenglong for second time
AT Photo
Imphal, Oct 20: A radio-tagged adult Amur falcon (Falcon amurensis) named Chiulon which had reached her breeding area in northern China in May this year during her routine annual migration course, has finally arrived in Manipur's Tamenglong district, a Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientist said.
WII scientist R Suresh Kumar, who is currently monitoring the route of the migratory bird informed that Chiulon arrived at a forested area near Tamenglong at 4.15 am on Tuesday.
On October 31 and November 1,2019,a 5-member WII team had radio-tagged five Amur falcons, including two males, at Puching village in Manipur with the support of the State Forest Department and locals.
The five Amur falcons were named Chiulon,Puching and Phalong (all names of villages in Manipur's Tamenglong district) and Irang and Barak (both names of rivers).
The WII scientist Suresh Kumar who had tagged more than a dozen Amur Falcon in the last six years said,This is the second time since the tag and release that Chiulon arrived earlier by a week adding it arrived in the state on 26 October in 2020 and departed after two weeks on November 11, 2020 on its migration to Africa. Irang, another Satellite radio tagged Amur falcon, is still on its way in China,he added.
Both Irang and Chiulon were dubbed as Manipur's Amur ambassadors by the state forest department.
This pigeon-sized migratory birds locally known as Akhuaipuina which migrate to their wintering grounds in South Africa, usually arrived in large numbers during October in Nagaland and Manipur besides a few places in northeast India undertaking a yearly journey of about 20,000 km.They leave the region in November after having enough food for their non-stop flight to Africa where they spend their winters.
The radio-tagging of Amur falcons started in Manipur in 2018 as part of an initiative to conserve wildlife and also to study the route these long-distance migratory birds take and the environmental patterns along their route.
