In the first of its kind bird count jointly undertaken by a citizens’ body and the State forest department, as many as 103 bird species — including those like Alpine Swift, Indian Scops Owl, Indian Eagle Owl and Indian Pitta — were sighted at the Karnala Bird Sanctuary (KBS) located near Mumbai.
Located within the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR), the KBS is the first and one of the oldest bird sanctuaries in the country. It was declared a bird sanctuary way back in 1966.
Spread over 12.48 sq km in Panvel tehsil in the adjoining Raigad district, this bird sanctuary is a nearly two hour drive from downtown Mumbai. It is very popular among nature lovers, trekkers, fort and heritage enthusiasts.
In all, 27 bird enthusiasts participated in the day-night survey - called the Karnala Bird Count. The participants were divided into 9 teams that covered all types of habitats in the sanctuary. Each team comprised bird experts, photographers, ebird users, GWT members and forest guards.
Thje bird count was conducted jointly by the Maharashtra Forest Department (MFD) and Green Works Trust (GWT) on December 19-20, 2020.
“This was the first-of-its kind of a scientific survey in the Karnala Bird Sanctuary. This was also the first of its kind of night bird count in Maharashtra. Through this survey, we wanted to document bird population and avifaunal diversity in this sanctuary. During the survey, we sighted a total of 103 species of birds,” GWT’s founder Nikhil Bhopale said.
According to Bhopale, the survey followed two types of bird count sampling methods viz. Line Transect and Point Counts. There were 9 line transacts and 5 point counts were done to cover the sprawling sanctuary area.
Some of the bird species sighted during the survey were Alpine Swift, Indian Scops Owl, Indian Eagle Owl, Indian Pitta, Common Hawk Cuckoo and Peregrine Falcon feeding on Parakeet. The bird count was inaugurated by Sunil Limaye, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) heading the West zone.
Dr Bhanudas Pingle, Deputy Conservator of Forest (Wildlife), Thane; Nandakumar Kupte, Assistant Commissioner of Forest, Phansad and Pradip Chavhan, Range Forest Officer, Karnala Bird Sanctuary were among those present for the event.