Since last 5 years I haven't came accross any Indian Cormorant in Tripura. I haven't visited the other northeastern states for birding. So about Tripura I think it's a no to the availability of Indian Cormorant. But we never know when and what we may encounter in the upcoming day.

Pinak Paul (Tripura)

I'm a newbie in this birdwatching world and I didn't explored much areas in Tripura. I haven't sighted any Indian Cormorant till now. Mostly we find Little Cormorants either perched on a tree branch or in action. But I would be more than happy if in the coming days I could sight Indian Cormorants in Tripura too. 

Chayan Debnath
Agartala, Tripura

Sharing the previous records of the species from Bibliography of south asian ornithology

References to Indian Cormorant from NE India* in extent literature

Overall NE India

1. Blanford, W. 1898. Fauna of British India – Volume 4: “…more common to the eastward in Burma, and was found by Hume in Manipur. It is probable that in some cases small females of P. carbo have been mistaken for P. fuscicollis.”.

2. Stuart Baker, E. C. 1927. Fauna of British India – Volume 6: “…Assam; all Burma, Manipur, Cachar…”

3. Ali & Ripley. 2001. Handbook of Birds of India & Pakistan. Volume 1. Distribution mentions “…to E. Assam.”

4. Grimmett, R., Inskipp, C. & Inskipp. T. 2011. Birds of the Indian subcontinent. Map: Shows it as resident in entire Assam, E. Meghalaya & W. Manipur (Note, the map is same in Kazmeirczak 2000 as well).

5. Grimmett, R,. Inskipp, C. & Inskipp. T. 1998. Birds of the Indian subcontinent. Same map as 2011 edition with addition of entire Tripura in its range.

6. Rasmussen, P. C. & Anderton, J. 2012. Birds of South Asia: Volume 2. “Assam Valley”, “Cachar”, “Manipur” included in its range. Volume 1 map very similar to Grimmett et al. 2011

Arunachal Pradesh

1. Ali, Salim;Ripley, S. Dillon 1949. The birds of the Mishmi Hills. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society.  Dibrugarh and probably work up the Lohit.

2. Betts, F. N. 1956. Notes on birds of the Subansiri area, Assam. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 53: (3) 397-414. “Often seen on the Panior river as a wanderer from the plains” – no other Cormorant listed.

3. Singh, Pratap 1995. Recent bird records from Arunachal Pradesh, India. Forktail. 10: 65-104 (1994). Lists it from D’ering

4. Barman, R. 1996. Birds of D'ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh. Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 36: (3) Listed by not checked

5. Biswas, K. K.;Soren, P. C.;Basu, D.;Chatopadhyay, S.;Bhuinya, S. 2005. Observation on vertebrate fauna of D'ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh. Records of the Zoological Survey of India. Listed as rare

6. Choudhruy, A. 2006. Birds of Arunachal Pradesh. Listed as “L.U” = “Local or Altitudinal Migrant, Uncommon”

7. Dutta, B. B.;Roy, S. Basu 2006. Aves. Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh (Part-1). State Fauna Series, 13. 1: 69-245. Director: Zoological Survey of India. Kolkata, India. Cites four sources – Ali & Ripley (1948), Barman (1996), Dutta (1998) apart from their own report of a bird flying along Subansiri river, Dumporijo, U. Subansiri. Not able to trace Dutta (1998) reference – but details quoted here “noted a family party consisting of two adults and one immature on a large boulder in Kameng river towards Sangti, Dirang, 45 km ahead of Bomdila, W. Kameng district”

8. Srinivasan, Umesh;Dalvi, Shashank;Naniwadekar, Rohit;Anand, M. O.;Datta, Aparajita 2010. The birds of Namdapha National Park and surrounding areas: recent significant records and a checklist of the species. Forktail. Listed by them citing two other secondary online references, both of them (Banerjee 2009, Chatterjee 2004), no longer online. It appears both were listing.

9. Borang, Asham 2015. Checklist and status of birds of Arunachal Pradesh in eastern Himalaya. Bulletin of Arunachal Forest Research. Listed but not checked.

10. Grimmett, R. Inskipp, C., Inskipp, T. & Sherub. 2019. Birds of Bhutan & the Eastern Himalayas. Map shows seven patches in S. Arunachal, from W. to E. marked – some of them are identifiable, and mappable to the above records – namely – W. Kameng, Lower & Upper Subansiri, D’Ering, Lohit and Namdapha.

Meghalaya

1. Stuart Baker, E. C.1907. Birds of the Khasia Hills. (Part II). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 17: (4) Listed as fairly common (vs Great Cormorant as Not common and Little Cormorant as Common)

2. Choudhury, Anwaruddin 2003. The birds of Nongkhyllem. Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 43: (4) 52-53. Listed as first record for Meghalaya seen by the author between 1998 and 2002.

Nagaland

3. Choudhury, Anwaruddin 2003. A pocket guide to the birds of Nagaland. Listed it as birds likely to occur in Nagaland but not yet occurred.

4. Grewal, Bikram;Sen, Sumit;Sreenivasan, Ramki 2012. Birds of Nagaland. Lists, probably on the basis of Choudhury 2003 [Not checked]

Manipur

1. Hume, A.O. 1888. List of Birds of Manipur, Assam, Sylhet and Cachar. “…common at the Logtak lake (though less so than the next species [= Little Cormorant]), but I saw it nowhere else in Manipur. I have no record of the occurrence of this species in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar.”

2. Higgins, J. C. 1934. The game birds and animals of the Manipur State with notes on their numbers, migration and habits. Part IV. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 37: (1) 81-95. Listed as migratory (Manipuri name ura okmal = Cormorant like a pig!), occurring along with other two cormorants. He also talks about a ‘Green-eyed Cormorant’ that Shikaris describe, a fourth species, which is a little larger than Little Cormorant, that Higgins believes is also Little – while, that may actually be the Indian.

3. Choudhury, Anwaruddin 2009. Significant recent ornithological records from Manipur, north-east India, with an annotated checklist. Forktail. 25: 71-89 Lists as uncommon quoting Higgins (1934)

Tripura

1. Mathur, H. N.;Chakraborti, D.;Bhattacharya, T. 1993. Birds of Tripura - a Checklist. 1-24. Tripura State Council for Science and Technology, Govt., of Tripura. Agartala. Listed for Tripura [Not checked]

2. Director, 2002. The State Fauna Series – Tripura. Lists it for Tripura and quotes IWWRB (1989) [present day AWC] as having reported it from Tripura.

3. Choudhury, A. 2010. Recent ornithological records from Tripura, north-eastern India, with an annotated checklist. Indian Birds 6 (3): 66–74. Listed as resident, uncommon

* References specific to Assam not included here.

Jaydev Mandal (Assam)

I have been birding in Tripura for a long time of more than thirty years. I have not come across the Indian cormorant in Tripura. Neither it was shown to me by my father who took me on my earliest trips nor I have come across the bird later by myself. I have also not heard anyone seeing it. I can say that I have not seen the bird in Tripura for the last 25 years. I have only seen the great cormorant and the little cormorant.

Definitely a rare or localized or irruptive species in the Brahmaputra Valley. It also does not help that the photographers don't seem to be very interested in cormorants. I'd pay particular attention to the cormorant flocks in Nameri and Kaziranga.