Rare Birds at the Lake.

Not easy to spot them:(From left) Ruddy-breasted Crake and Baillons Crake sighted at Kannankurichi Lake in Salem, on Thursday.- PHOTOS: Special Arrangement

Two rare and elusive birds, Ruddy-breasted Crake and Baillon’s Crake, were spotted at Kannankurichi Lake by bird watchers.

The programme was organised by Tamil Birds Group as part of the first Pongal Bird Count 2015 across the State.

Bird watchers S.V. Ganeshwar and photographer J. Arun Prakash, spotted the two species of rare birds belonging to Rallidae family in the lake.

They told The Hindu that this is the first time that both the birds were spotted at Salem.

Ruddy-breasted Crake is dark olive brown in colour, has white barring on rear flanks and under tail-coverts and is a resident bird of the State.

Baillon’s Crake breeds abundantly in Kashmir and is a widespread winter visitor to the subcontinent.

It has brown upperparts, extensively marked with white and…