Biodiversity, Birds, Checklist

A Checklist of the Birds of Kasargod District, Kerala, India

Maxim Rodrigues,

Kollangana (H), Kallakatta (PO), Kasaragod, Kerala, 671123, India
[email protected]
 
Published in: Malabar Trogon 18(1): 40-56. PDF

Abstract

The Kasaragod district in northern Kerala has 366 species of birds belonging to 23 orders and 83 families out of which 12 are endemic to the Western Ghats and 22 species under the various threatened categories of the IUCN Red List.

Introduction

Kasaragod is the northernmost district in Kerala which is popularly known for its diverse culture, language and geography. The presence of various ecosystems – the shoreline of Arabian Sea, estuaries, river systems, plantations, well-wooded compounds, sacred groves, lateritic midlands, different kinds of wetlands, foothills, forest and hilly regions of the Western Ghats, etc. – provide suitable habitat for both resident and migratory birds. Kasaragod is bound by the Arabian Sea on the west, the Western Ghats hill range lie eastwards and broad midlands cover the area between the coastline and the foothills of Western Ghats. Wetlands are wider as one goes south and across the north, interspersed across lateritic midlands. From the northeast to southeast, the Western Ghats run parallel to the Arabian Sea towards south Kerala.

Birds are well studied in Kerala (Sashikumar et al. 2011; Praveen 2015). Introduction of the citizen science database eBird has made bird watching more widespread and has increased the observations for various species in Kerala since 2014. Bird Atlas survey during 2017-18 brought a huge set of data of the birds in Kasaragod and also several new people into the field of bird watching.

Ornithological knowledge from the study area includes Koelz (1947) who procured a few specimens of birds from Kasaragod when he collected from most of the Madras presidency. Sashikumar (2004) studied birds in a few sacred groves in Kasaragod. Avifauna of some wetlands, coastal areas and also reserve forests were documented (Sashikumar & Jayarajan 2007; Sashikumar et al. 2015). Heronries of the district have been documented by Sashikumar & Jayarajan (2007a), Sashikumar & Jayarajan (2008), Sashikumar et al. (2011a), Sashikumar et al. (2015a), Roshnath et al. (2018) and Roshnath et al. (2019).

Bird diversity in the district has been further studied in recent years: in eight sacred groves in Kasaragod (Jyothi & Nameer 2015); in the villages of Bengapadav (Rodrigues 2017 – 44 species), Aranthode (Rodrigues 2018 – 111 species) and Kidoor (Rodrigues et al. 2019 – 156 species). Some earlier notable bird sightings from the district in the literature include: Sashikumar (1989) – Houbura Bustard Chlamydotis macqueenii, Praveen et al. (2013), – Cory’s Shearwater Calonectris borealis,  Karuthedathu et al. (2014) – Common Swift Apus apus, Palot (2014) – Malayan Night Heron Gorsachius melanolophus, Reghuvaran (2016) – Pied Wheatear Oenanthe pleschanka, Krishna (2017) – Eurasian Hobby Falco subbuteo, Kidoor & Rodrigues (2018) – White Stork Ciconia ciconia, Rodrigues (2018a) – Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis, Rodrigues & Krishna (2018) – Golden-headed Cisticola Cisticola exilis, Mohan (2019) – Oriental Pratincole Glareola maldivarum, Sanuraj (2019) – Black-headed Bunting Emberiza melanocephala and Santhosh (2019) – Sooty Tern Onychoprion fuscatus. Bird watchers reported various aspects of birds in Kasaragod including breeding and distribution records (Manekkara & Podavoor 2015; Anjitha 2018; Anitta 2018; Rodrigues 2018b; Sanuraj 2018; Anjitha 2019).

A checklist of the birds of Kasaragod district is compiled here from the species reported in eBird.org and other sources including earlier observations by senior birdwatchers. All publicly available data from eBird and published literature till 29 May 2020 was compiled along with a few other records with confirmation from the respective birdwatchers. The nomenclature followed is that of Praveen et al. (2019).

Results

A total of 366 species of birds belonging to 23 orders and 83 families have been recorded from Kasargod district, out of which 12 species are endemic to the Western Ghats (Praveen et al. 2019) (excluding Malabar Starling Sturnia malabarica blythii, a subspecies of Chestnut-tailed Starling Sturnia malabarica). Kasaragod has 22 species falling under the various threatened categories of the IUCN Red List, of which 2 are Endangered (EN), 3 are Vulnerable (VU) and 17 are Near Threatened (NT).

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude towards Prashantha Krishna M.C., for helping in various ways to finalise this work.  I thank senior bird watchers P.C. Rajeevan, Suresh Babu P. and Muhamed Jafer Palot for helping in compiling the checklist by adding various valuable unpublished data and for useful discussions. I thank all of the Kasaragod Birders team for their great contribution and support. I thank the eBird portal which made the aggregation and analysis of accessible data. I thank Harish Babu M, Harshith C, Prashantha Krishna M.C, Raju Kidoor, Shyamkumar Puravankara and Sreehari K Mohan for contributing the images used in this paper. Special thanks to Jithin Thomas for creating the location map. I am greatly thankful to C Sashikumar, for helping me in guiding this work.

References

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