Kochi: A first of its kind survey on bird species in the district will get going from today as part of the ‘Ernakulam Bird Atlas project’ in which a total of 240 select “habitats” will be covered in two phases. “The ‘Wet Season count’ will be done from July 16 to September 13 and the ‘Dry Season’ count from January 16 to March 15. A total of 45 experts will visit 240 bird habitats identified in the district twice during the massive exercise. We aim to publish a book by next June,” said K. Vishnupriyan Kartha, secretary, Cochin Natural History Society, which is conducting the survey.
A similar survey was already completed in Alapuzha and Thrissur districts and the organisers hope to make a ‘Kerala Bird Atlas’ in five years. “The purpose of the survey is to create a birds map of Kerala which will represent the status of the bird diversity such as number of species as well as the number of birds in a species which occur in a place. It will also help us understand the seasonality of the bird occurrence- both resident and migrant species of birds,” he said.
Kerala has more than 500 species of birds listed. As part of the exercise, a team of two to five bird watchers will travel to select habitats with one of them being an expert in identifying the birds by sight as well as bird calls. They will use binoculars and cameras as well as mobile phone apps such as e-Bird to collect and record the data of birds. The data will then be reviewed by experts and analysed using various scientific software tools to generate the maps and Atlas of birds before publishing the book.
