Paralysed, unable to fly or even waddle, a shoveller sits helpless in the sand at the edge of Rajasthan’s Sambhar lake. At some distance another bird — a black-winged stilt — sips water, its leg awkwardly placed and incapable of motion.
These birds appear to be affected by a kind of paralysis, clear symptoms of avian botulism which has sent alarm bells ringing at the famous Sambhar salt lake of Rajasthan