Audubon International (click here)
February 9, 2020
By Ankita G. Menon
Last year’s extended monsoon (click here) and the delay in arrival of winter have hit the migration pattern of winter birds in the wetlands of Thane this season.
Climate changes and construction activities in Thane, have driven away birds such as waders, flycatchers and eagles from the city early this year, said bird lovers in the city.
The recent figures published on www.ebird.org, a website which keeps the statistics of birds provided by bird-watchers worldwide, show that 2,700 birds of 135 species were spotted within Thane this winter.
The number is dismal compared to 3,855 of 147 species that were spotted in February 2019.
Since December, migratory birds start arriving in the city from extremely cold places across the world and leave after March.
In November 2019, a total of 2754 birds were spotted during the bird count conducted by Enviro-Vigil, which regularly conducts such events in Thane.
Avinash Bhagat, an avid bird watcher and expert with Enviro-Vigil, said, “On an average from 2013 to 2019, we spotted around 252 species of birds in the city. However, in the past two bird counts in 2019, there has been a drop in the number of bird species. While February saw 147 species of birds, it dropped to 142 species by November. The most recent count of this month published on eBird shows presence of 135 species in Thane.”...
