First documented sighting of Japanese sparrowhawk in mainland India reported from Chennai

Over the last couple of months, the Adyar Estuary has hosted the Saunders tern, and then organised a high tea with a female red-headed bunting; and in the week that went by, it had a dalliance with a Japanese sparrowhawk. No mistyping there; a Japanese sparrowhawk indeed. The lucky pair of eyes that peered through the binoculars belongs to Ramanan R.V., a Madras Naturalists Society (MNS) member and a birder.  The encounter with the Accipiter hawk happened in the liminal zone at the Adyar Estuary where one breathes in the same air that caresses the broken bridge and the peripheral park of the compound wall enclosing the Theosophical Society campus. This part of the Estuary can be christened “unexpected birds check-in counter”, given the enviable aggregate of such sightings it boasts.