MISCELLANEOUS NOTES Agardanda village creek during low tide. The Shriwardhan, Raigad district, we also sighted a distancebetweenthenearestcrabplover,aloner, pair ofpiedharriers (Circus melanoleucos) on a and the small boat carrying the observers, was mangrove mudflat. The harriers were soaring at about 50 m. During 20 minutes ofobservation, a low height. At their approach, common three small crabs were eaten by a single crab sandpipers, greenshanks and redshanks took plover. The crab plover was seen making a flight. On March 13-14, 1999, a pair of pied sudden rush at the crab, stabbing and lifting it harriers was seen on the same mudflat in Dighi up in the beak, shaking it vigorously and village. dropping it in the mud before eating it. It was observed that the crab plovers preferred to fly February21, 2000 PREMSAGAR G. MESTRI close to the sea surface. The bird had a SATISHA. PANDE characteristic call, Twell-tak, Twell-tak while on C/9 Bhosale Park, the wing. Sahakar Nagar No. 2, Inthemorningbetween0645 and 0930hrs Pune 4/1 009, of the same day, at Dighi village, Taluka Maharashtra, India. OCCURRENCE OF LESSER FLORICAN SYPHEOTIDESINDICA 12. ATHOSOR, INNASHIK DISTRICT, MAHARASHTRA A lesser florican Sypheotides indica was The only threat to the lesser florican in sighted by one of us (BR) at the Hindustan this high security area are aircraft in flight, but AeronauticalLimited(HAL)complexatHosor, since the flight frequency is very low, the 20kmfromNashiktowards DhuliaonNational probability ofa hit is also low. Highway 3 on September 24, 1998. An adult WethankHALforpermissiontovisittheir male in full breeding plumage was observed complex. We thank Mr. Nag, Horticulturist for performing display jumps on September 25, arrangingallpermitsrequiredtoseethe florican 1998 on a subsequent visit. (For a description andMr. Kale and Mr. Patnaik atthe AirTraffic of the HAL complex see Raha and Prakash, Control tower, HAL for their hospitality and JBNHS98(1)\ 110-111). sharing their natural history notes of the area The bird was recorded as common, and with us. probably presentthroughout the year in Nashik andAhmednagarduringthe 19thcentury(Hume December 1, 1998 B. RAHA andMarshal 1879; Sankaran etal. 1992). There Hemant Vihar, PlotNo.13, were very few confirmed sightings ofthis bird Vr. SavarkarBagar, OffGangapurRoad, inMaharashtraduringarecentsurvey(Sankaran Nashik 422 005, Maharashtra, India. et. al. 1992), andnone fromNashikdistrict. We VIBHUPRAKASH think this first confirmed sighting ofthe highly Bombay Natural History Society, threatened species from an unreported site is 331 Rajendra Nagar, , worth recording. Bharatpur 321 001, Rajasthan, India. References Sankaran, R., A.R. Rahmani & U. Ganguli-Lachungpa 89(2): 163-179. (1992): TheDistributionandStatusoftheLesser Hume, A.O. & A.H.T. Marshal (1879): The game Florican Sypheotides indica (J.F. Miller) in the birds of India, Burmah and Ceylon. Publ. by Indian subcontinent. J. Bombay nat. Hist. Soc. authors,Calcutta.BNHS, Mumbai. JOURNAL, BOMBAYNATURAL HISTORYSOCIETY, 98(2),AUG. 2001 279