Spot-billed Duck brood at Dorai Kere

At about 29 acres, Dorai Kere in Uttarahalli, is one of the large water bodies in South Bangalore. 

Location of Dorai Kere 

In Dec 2010, DNA had reported that the lake was being restored by the BBMP at a cost of Rs 8 crore, including a sewage treatment plant (STP) to treat 1 MLD of sewage. One corner of the lake currently houses the STP. With a track along the bund, and lots of greenery, the lake is a nice place for morning walkers and joggers (despite a number of stray dogs). It is also a good place for bird watching.

Recently, Mr Vinaya Kumar Thimmappa, on the bngbirds email group, reported the sighting of Spot-billed Pelicans at the lake. To check out the pelicans, Mr Deepak Jois, a resident of the area visited the lake. Apart from the pelicans and a host of other birds (more than twenty species), he was pleasantly surprised to see a brood of eight Spot-billed Duck chicks. The Spot-billed Duck is one of the commonly seen birds in Bangalore lakes, often in pairs. However, the species breeds in a very few places inside the city, which is why Deepak feels that documenting this sighting is quite important.   

Spot-billed Ducks at Dorai Kere (Courtesy: Deepak Jois)

To see Deepak’s delightful video of the brood getting separated by a pack of marauding dogs, and later reuniting, see this youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY3xT9z84DM.
 

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