Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26
September 2019 | 11(12): 14496–14502
Report of five interesting
avian species from Durgapur ecoregion, West Bengal, India by citizen science
effort
Sagar Adhurya
1 & Shantanu Bhandary 2
1 Department of
Zoology, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, Birbhum, West
Bengal 731235, India.
1,2 Durgapur
Wildlife Information and Nature Guide Society, Fuljhore,
Durgapur, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal 713206,
India.
1 sagaradhurya.rs@visva-bharati.ac.in
(corresponding author), 2 shaanbhandary@gmail.com
Abstract: This study aimed to report a few lesser known species
from Durgapur ecoregion, West Bengal, India.
In spite of the anthropogenic pressure, Durgapur supports a high avian
diversity. So far, 257 avian species
belonging to 59 families were recorded with a citizen science effort during a
period of more than five years (2013–present).
Out of these, five species discussed here, are either not recorded previously
or have few records: Hume’s Lark and Graceful Prinia
were recorded from riverine habitat; and Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, White-rumped Shama, and Indian Blue-Robin were recorded from woodland
habitat. More extensive exploration of
this region with involvement of citizen scientists in this study will enrich
our knowledge about bird diversity, their migration and distribution pattern in
this region.
Keywords:
Anthropogenic activity, birds, drongo, lark, prinia, robin, shama.
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3980.11.12.14496-14502
|
ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:9E0EAB8F-3F3B-496B-AFCB-76E9C711F8D6
Editor: Hem Sagar Baral, Charles Sturt University, Australia. Date
of publication: 26 September 2019 (online & print)
Manuscript details: #3980 | Received 30 December
2017 | Final received 13 July 2019 | Finally accepted 31 August 2019
Citation: Adhurya, S. & S. Bhandary (2019). Report of five interesting avian
species from Durgapur ecoregion, West Bengal, India by citizen science effort. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(12): 14496–14502. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3891.11.12.14496-14502
Copyright: © Adhurya & Bhandary
2019. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT
allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and
distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of
publication.
Funding: Self-funded.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing
interests.
Author details: Sagar Adhurya
is Senior Research Fellow at Department of Zoology, Visva-Bharati
University. Shantanu Bhandary is employee of
Eastern Coalfield Limited. Both of the
authors are member of Durgapur Wildlife Information and Nature Guide Society
and working on its project on avian diversity study.
Author contribution: SA wrote the paper and performed all of the analysis. Both authors collected field data.
Acknowledgements:
The author would like to thank all
members of Durgapur Wildlife Information and Nature Guide Society for their
hard efforts to explore the biodiversity of Paschim Bardhaman
District; especially Nirjhar Banerjee for his first
sighting of Hume’s Lark, Sumit Acharjee
for his field cooperation to find Indian Blue-Robin and Saikat
Adhurya for his field cooperation to find Graceful Prinia. Authors are
thankful to Amar Kumar Nayak for the help with essential literature. Authors
are also thankful to prof. Santanu Ray, Dr. Utpal Singha Roy, and Dr. Moitreyee Chakraborty for
their constant encouragement behind this study.
Introduction
Durgapur is an industrial city
in West Bengal, India. Geographically,
it lies in the transitional zone between two ecoregions, Chotanagpur
Plateau and Gangetic Plains.
Complementing its unique geographical location, this region harbours
exceptional biodiversity, having species from both the ecoregions mentioned
earlier. Mention may be made that the
Common Babbler Argya caudata
and Striated Babbler Argya earlei are species of Chotanagpur
Plateau and Gangetic Plains respectively, but then, the present study revealed
that both these species are found in this ecoregion.
Avifaunal diversity of this
region has been studied by various researchers, however, most of their studies
focused on Damodar Valley (Gauntlett
1971, 1985; Chakraborty 2011; Hossain & Aditya 2016). Thus, it was felt necessary to undertake a
holistic study to get an idea about the avifaunal diversity of the entire city
and its outskirts. This was the primary
motivation behind the present work where, for the first time, the whole area of
Durgapur was taken into consideration for studying avifaunal diversity. We started a citizen science program namely
‘Birding Durgapur’ in 2013 to accomplish our job. With increasing citizen science involvement,
we increased our area of work to the whole Paschim Bardhaman
District in April 2017. In recent days,
the citizen science program has become a potential tool for biodiversity
monitoring (Cohn 2008; Silvertown 2009; Devictor et
al. 2010; Theobald et al. 2015). Several
web-based popular programs (such as eBird, CBMI, MigrantWatch etc.) rely on the power of citizen
scientists. The volunteer citizen
scientists minimize the difficulties of researchers to study a large
region. Increase in a number of
observers in an area, in turn, increases the frequency of sampling, resulting
in better coverage and public awareness.
In present days, finding a bird
outside of its range is not uncommon. It
may occur due to three possible reasons.
First, increase in the number of birds beyond carrying capacity, forcing
excess individuals to go beyond the range to find suitable resources for their
survival. Second, an increase in the
number of observers helps to fill the gap in knowledge about the bird
distribution pattern. Third,
disturbances (possibly driven by unpredictable climate patterns and
anthropogenic habitat alteration) beyond the tolerance limit in its range
forcing the species to shift.
This article aims to report the five-interesting
avifauna from Durgapur ecoregion, which are either not recorded or very little
recorded from this geographical area.
Materials and Methods
Study area
The present study was carried out in Durgapur
subdivision (23.480N, 87.32°E) of Paschim Bardhaman
District, West Bengal, India and adjoining Damodar
Valley (Fig. 1). Durgapur is the 77th
most populated city in India with 566,517 people (as per 2011 census of
Government of India) and covers an area of about 154km2. This industrial city is at approximately 65m
above sea level and located in the transitional zone between the Chotanagpur Plateau and the Gangetic Plains. This ecoregion is surrounded by the river Damodar in the south and the river Ajoy
in the north. Soil, in this region, is
red laterite type. About 100 years ago,
the total area was covered by dense Sal Shorea
robusta forest, which was cleared gradually from
the late 1950s to establish India’s second planned city (Chakrabarti 1989).
Data collection
A citizen science program, ‘Biodiversity of Paschim Bardhaman’ (formerly known as ‘Birding Durgapur’) has been
running since 2013 to create interest among the citizens of Durgapur and
adjoining areas for nature watching by Durgapur Wildlife Information and Nature
Guide Society. Nature-watchers use
digital cameras for photography and field binoculars for birdwatching. Nature watchers regularly post their efforts
(eBird checklists, photographs and call recordings)
with date and place in the Facebook group.
All observations are verified by the group experts. Species were identified by using suitable
field guides (Grimmett et al. 2011; Ali 2012; Grewal
et al. 2016) while suitable field guides (Grimmett et
al. 2011; Baidya et al. 2017), online range maps and
databases (eBird 2017) and publications (Gauntlett 1971, 1985; Chakraborty 2011; Hossain &
Aditya 2014) on this region were followed to find out the distribution and
occurrence of various bird species. A
checklist of birds of Durgapur subdivision is continuously maintained by group members.
Results
Since 2013, 257 species belonging to 59 families have
been recorded with the cumulative effort of citizen scientists in Durgapur
subdivision. Out of these, eight species
did not have any previous records from this ecoregion before 2013. Of these, three species were reported
recently (Gupta et al. 2013; Nayak et al. 2015; Maulick
& Adhurya 2017).
The remaining five avian species are discussed below (Table 1).
Family Alaudidae
Hume’s Lark Calandrella acutirostris: This species was recorded three times:
the first record from Beharpur (23.466˚N, 87.347˚E)
on 10 February 2017, the second record from Krishna Nagar Village
(23.460˚N,87.328˚E) on 26 March 2017, and the third record from Durgapur
Barrage (23.476˚N, 87.308˚E) on 25 December 2017. This species was identified by its typical
call pattern and its dark lore, pale ear coverts, yellowish bill with a dark
spot at culmen, pale crescent below the eye and lightly streaked upperparts. Habitat was riverside agricultural land
(Image 1).
Family Cisticolidae
Graceful Prinia Prinia gracilis stevensi: This species has been recorded regularly at
Durgapur Barrage (23.468°N, 87.306°E) since 16 April 2017. This is a smaller prinia
compared to other similar looking grassland prinia of
this region. It is separated from other prinias by streaked upperparts and cross-barred tail with
white tip. The dark grey brown
upperparts indicated the subspecies P. g. stevensi. In addition, this species can be identified
with its typical zr-zr-zr call which was heard
during the field work. Habitat was river
sand bed with sarpat grass (Image 2).
Family Dicruridae
Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo
Dicrurus remifer: One immature individual was spotted at Kumar Mangalam
Park (23.563˚N, 87.303˚E) on 10 November 2016.
The immature individual was differentiated from a similar looking
species D. aeneus (Bronzed Drongo)
by the lesser forked tail and shorter bill.
The sound was variable, loud and musical. Habitat was woodland (Image 3).
Family Muscicapidae
White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus: One female was found at Kumar Mangalam
Park (23.563˚N, 87.303˚E) on 10 November 2016.
The female was identified from similar-looking abundant C. saularis (Oriental Magpie-Robin) by its white rump, and
orangish breast and whitish belly.
Habitat was woodland (Image 4).
Indian Blue-Robin Larvivora
brunnea: A male was observed at Tilabani forest (23.657˚N, 87.283˚E) on 19 April 2017. It was identified by bold white supercilium,
black lore and cheek, bluish upperparts, chestnut throat, breast and flanks,
white vent and undertail covert and short tail. Habitat was forest floor (Image 5).
Discussion
All of the above-mentioned species are mostly unknown
from Durgapur ecoregion and some of them have been only recently included in
the literature (Baidya et al. 2017). The Hume’s Lark and Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo may be the first record from the Paschim Bardhaman and adjoining Bankura District. The Hume’s Lark mainly has distribution in northern West Bengal; up to
upper edges of Birbhum District. Though the species has been recorded from Damodar Valley (Chakraborty et al. 2011), the location of
the finding is unclear. In addition,
Chakraborty (2011) marked the species as resident, while it is a well-known
winter migrant (Grimmett et al. 2011; Grewal et al.
2016; Baidya et al. 2017). The Graceful Prinia
is mainly found in the northern part of West Bengal up to the upper part of Birbhum District in the south. Recently, it has been also recorded at Damodar Valley of Asansol subdivision of Paschim Bardhaman District and Bardhaman,
Purba Bardhaman district (Baidya et al. 2017), but no records have been made in
between these two regions so far. The
multiple record of Graceful Prinia between Asansol
and Bardhaman suggests that the bird may have
distribution throughout the Damodar Valley which was
previously unknown. The Lesser
Racket-tailed Drongo has distribution mainly in the
Himalayan foothills of West Bengal (Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri
and Alipurduar districts). But recently it has been recorded as a rare
winter migrant to the Gangetic plains of West Bengal (Khan 2005; Roy et al.
2016; Baidya et al. 2017). In addition to these records, our record
suggests that this species may also have a wintering range to Damodar Valley at the west.
As Baidya et al. (2017) concluded in their
book, there needs further investigation about the wintering activity of this
bird. The White-rumped
Shama is distributed up to the hilly region of the
western part of West Midnapur, Purulia and Paschim Bardhaman
district to the east (Baidya et al. 2017). But it has no earlier record from Durgapur
ecoregion, which is not a hilly area.
The present record suggests that this bird sometime visits the far east
to plateau-plains transition areas like Durgapur. As per Baidya et
al. (2017), the Indian Blue Robin is a passage migrant to the whole of West
Bengal except the extreme eastern corner.
This is actually a lesser-known bird from this region.
The number of avifaunal species in Durgapur
subdivision is increasing day by day with increasing citizen involvement and
more extensive exploration. At the end
of 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 the total number of avifaunal species
at Durgapur subdivision was 139, 163, 186, 221, 238, and 253, respectively (Adhurya, unpublished work) (Fig. 2). With the increasing number of avian species,
finding of unreported avian species is also increasing due to the interesting
geographical position. Records of these
species are important because there are very few records of these species from
this ecoregion in both existing range maps and literature. But most of the places in this region are
still unexplored and need more citizen scientist involvement as a
cost-effective method, which will help us to understand in more detail the
spatial and temporal occurrence of different avian species.
Table 1.
Tabular presentation of five species and their occurrence pattern.
|
Scientific name |
Common name |
Period of occurrence |
1 |
Calandrella acutirostris |
Hume’s Lark |
February, March, December |
2 |
Prinia gracilis stevensi |
Graceful Prinia |
Throughout the year |
3 |
Dicrurus remifer |
Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo |
November |
4 |
Copsychus malabaricus |
White-rumped Shama |
November |
5 |
Larvivora brunnea |
Indian Blue-Robin |
April |
For
figures & images – click here
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