Bird Diversity of Panchayats– A case study from Kerala

Blue-eared Kingfisher by Aparna Purushothaman

The state of Kerala has been in the forefront of biodiversity monitoring in the country with a rather uniform coverage across the length and breadth of the state. Based on the several monitoring projects in the last few decades, and intensive monitoring in the last five years–more than 2 million bird records and 2 lakh bird checklists have been amassed in eBird. Using this database, a unique attempt was made to quantify the bird diversity in each of the 1000 odd panchayats, municipalities and corporations and present it as posters.

As a first phase of the programme, one administrative unit was selected from each of the 14 districts in Kerala, and the poster was released on 4th December 2018 at a state-level function where honourable forest minister Adv. K. Raju handed over these posters to the head of the administrative unit (Panchayat President or Municipal Chairperson) and the birdwatcher who contributed the most checklists within the administrative boundaries of the unit. Kerala Biodiversity Board chairman Shri. S.C. Joshi IFS, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Biodiversity Cell) Smt. Padma Mahanti IFS, and representatives of the local bodies took part in the function. Each poster has basic summaries including number of records, no of species, no of migratory species apart from the seasonality chart of ten common species, list of endemic species and threatened species found in each of these panchayats. It also has the complete list of eBirders who contributed the data and the organisations that conducted monitoring exercises in the past in those panchayats.

Posters (Download all) were released for:

Thiruvananthapuram (Corporation)
Kalamassery, Nilambur, and Thiruvalla (Municipalities)
Kulathupuzha, Parathode, Kumily, Kodamthuruth, Madakkathara, Elappully, Kakkur, Madayi, Vythiri, and Kumbla (Panchayats)

This project was spearheaded by Kerala Agricultural University, Kerala Bird Monitoring (KBM) network (formerly KeralaBirder), and the Bird Count India in association with the Kerala Forest Department.

This district summaries are aimed at assisting decentralised conservation at local levels. These posters will provide succinct information regarding bird diversity hotspots at these local levels and enable these local self-government institutions to conserve them while planning development works.