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First Documented Knob-billed Duck Record from Kaziranga Tiger Reserve

Female knob-billed duck on water at Lakhota Lake in Gujarat, India
Research · Ecology

A female knob-billed duck (Sarkidiornis melanotos) recorded at Donduwa Wetland in Assam became the first documented record of the species from Kaziranga Tiger Reserve. The observation was published as a short communication on 17 July 2026.

The bird was found during the reserve’s sixth annual waterbird count, conducted from 12 to 15 January 2025 across a network of 189 wetlands in core and buffer areas. It was first seen on 12 January but was not photographed until 15 January, when the researchers found it resting among greylag geese at Donduwa Wetland in Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the tiger reserve’s buffer zone.

The researchers identified the bird as a female from the combination of a speckled white head and blackish underparts glossed with green, contrasting with a white body. Knob-billed ducks are widespread in India but are very uncommon in the northeast, and the authors found no previous documented record from Kaziranga Tiger Reserve.

The record adds the species to the reserve’s documented avifauna. The authors also note recent improvements in wetland habitat following Forest Department conservation work and suggest these may have contributed to the occurrence, without establishing a causal link.

Sources and image credit

  1. Bora, N., Bora, C., Ojah, S., Rahman, A., & Hussain, A. (2026). Knob-billed duck (Sarkidiornis melanotos) from Kaziranga TR, Assam, India. Taprobanica, 15(2), 208–209. https://doi.org/10.47605/tapro.v15i2.413Primary short communication published 17 July 2026. A female knob-billed duck was documented at Donduwa Wetland in Laokhowa Wildlife Sanctuary and reported as the first documented record from Kaziranga Tiger Reserve; the species is very uncommon in northeastern India.

Image: Dr. Raju Kasambe / Wikimedia Commons — female knob-billed duck (Sarkidiornis melanotos) photographed at Lakhota Lake, Jamnagar, Gujarat, India, on 15 December 2017. Representative Indian female of the focal species; not the individual documented at Donduwa Wetland in 2025. · CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Source

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