Weekend Counts to be held to Record nocturnal birds

Mumbai: In an attempt to record the pattern of nocturnal and twilight birds in a more effective way, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) is going to conduct the bird count during weekends as well beginning this month. Currently, the bird count takes place every month for three hours on a Sunday morning.

“Every month we carry out the bird count once a month on Sunday mornings from 7 am to 10pm. This time, we are planning to do evening and morning sessions as well as a night trail.

The night and evening trails will help us in analysing the pattern of nocturnal birds,” said Saurabh Sawant, the coordinator for SGNP bird count.

The group will gather at SGNP at 2pm on Saturday and will be staying overnight to study the nocturnal birds as well as the birds that are active during dawn and dusk. The trail will conclude on Sunday.

Among the nocturnal and twilight birds, seven species of owls, three species of nightjars, seven species of cuckoons and six species of drongos were spotted at SGNP during the last bird survey conducted in 2014-15. “There has been no proper database of such surveys before. Now we are sending the survey sheets of bird counts to the forest department so as to have a wide documentation as it will help in analysing the change in bird patterns,” said Dr. Parvish Pandya, co-ordinator of the SGNP bird surveys.

In the last survey, the birds found at SGNP included the heron, eagret and eagle.