Sunday, August 5, 2007

Checklist of the birds of IIIT



This is an ongoing project to document the avifauna of the campus. The current checklist stands at 58 species. Click on the bird's name to see its picture. [WM = winter migrant] I have made this checklist after a year of observing the birds on campus. Many observations are seasonal, like the Common Hawk Cuckoo, heard during summer and early rains, the Golden Oriole, observed in summer and the warblers during the winter months. Some water birds that often fly past the campus like the Black headed Ibis and Great Cormorant are also recorded. Most of the rest are resident birds here, seen throughout the year.

  1. Yellow billed Babbler
  2. Large Grey Babbler
  3. Coppersmith Barbet
  4. Green Bee eater
  5. Redvented Bulbul
  6. Pied Bushchat
  7. Zittting Cisticola
  8. Great Cormorant
  9. Greater Coucal
  10. Large billed Crow
  11. Spotted Dove
  12. Laughing Dove
  13. Black Drongo
  14. Cattle Egret
  15. Little Egret
  16. Pale billed Flowerpecker
  17. Tickell's Blue Flycatcher
  18. Grey Francolin
  19. Indian Pond Heron
  20. Black crowned Night Heron
  21. Common Hoopoe
  22. Black headed Ibis
  23. Common Iora
  24. Indian Roller
  25. White throated Kingfisher
  26. Black Kite
  27. Brahminy Kite
  28. Asian Koel
  29. Red Wattled Lapwing
  30. Magpie Robin
  31. Small Minivet
  32. Scaly Bellied Munia
  33. Common Myna
  34. Brahminy Starling
  35. Golden Oriole
  36. Barn Owl
  37. Spotted Owlet
  38. Rose ringed Parakeet
  39. Blue Rock Pigeon
  40. Ashy Prinia
  41. Plain Prinia
  42. Grey breasted Prinia
  43. Indian Robin
  44. Shikra
  45. Long tailed Shrike
  46. House Sparrow
  47. Purple rumped Sunbird
  48. Purple Sunbird
  49. Barn Swallow (WM)
  50. House Swift
  51. Common Tailorbird
  52. Rufous Treepie
  53. White browed Wagtail
  54. Booted Warbler (WM)
  55. Blyth's Reed Warbler (WM)
  56. Black shouldered Kite
  57. Common Hawk Cuckoo
  58. Indian Silverbill
  59. Grey bellied Cuckoo
  60. White browed Bulbul
  61. Oriental Honey Buzzard
  62. Common Grey Hornbill

26 comments:

Bhargav Uppalapu said...

Really good work

Sankalp said...

hey, how do you determine the exact species once you've seen a bird, or you have a photograph?

i've been observing butterflies for a long time now. but never got down to these details.

Unknown said...

its worth all the hard work u have put in..[:)] keep up the good work....

sambhav said...

Its awesome work... now we can have details instead of just word of "woww" when we spot a bird in the college campus.....

Pratibha said...

GREAT!!!! ...you have really done
a great job.
Thanks and Congrats for your efforts.

Unknown said...

Cool stuff.. never thought that iiit had such good stuff.. keep up the good work and keep the stuff updated too :)

Abhilash Inumella said...

Wild life at IIITH captured on this blog.

From now on if someone sees a bird he can come here and know it's details.

Really great.

Anonymous said...

@ sankalp : There are various ways to identify, usually we start with field guides. Several are available in the market for Indian birds.

Once you have a field guide, you go out and observe the bird/butterfly carefully. The size, colouration, behaviour and call (in the case of birds) are indicators to identify the family & then narrow down to species level.

Anonymous said...

@ everyone else : thanks for the comments. Maybe there could be a wildlife walk organised on campus & you all could actually see some of the birds.

Arun said...

Gusshow!

Richeek said...

Hey , really a good work. Just one thing to ask , can you recognize a bird (which species) just by seeing it?

Unknown said...

Great work of research!!
I didnt know that there are such a larg variety of birds chirping around here .....
btw those pics are awsome!!

Unknown said...

First of all...the pictures...ultimate.
Now we can have a look at a bird and say that yes!! this is the one that was there in the list.
Really good work...keep it up.

Anonymous said...

@ richeek: yes, like I mentioned above, by looking at the various aspects of a bird's plumage, size and call and with the help of a bird guide it is possible to identify.

@piyush & amol : thanks. The links that go outside the blog take you to the oriental bird images database. Pics there are taken by photographers contributing to the database. Pics on this blog are taken by me. I will upload more as I get time.

IntoTheWild said...

never knew that i have such wide variety of birds in IIIT ...
u truly deserve word of praise
when will get to know abt more creatures , m paricularly intesrested in snakes

Aniket said...

Just amazing! How/when do you do all this birdwatching? Can I join you sometime?

Aniket said...

Just amazing! How/when do you do all this birdwatching? Can I join you sometime?

Ashwini said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

@ shrikant: More pics coming up as I get some time to write up. I can assure you one snake photo :p

@myself: You are welcome to join anytime fr birding!

saikiran said...

nice.. work

Anonymous said...

i used to watch these bird but never thought about finding their details........ it is really a good work.

Unknown said...

well hats off to your work ...

ShrutiWrites said...

Superb work! BTW, Is there any similar checklist for IIT Mumbai?

Unknown said...

o boy...now this list is really unbelievable....didn't know that IIIT is home to such exotic species...But how do you search for all these fauna in the IIIT jungles(:P)....I have seen a few of the species listed...but most of them I believe would be hard to,like how did you come to know about the nocturnal ones??

Anirudh Sravan Pulipaka said...

Great Work!

I do some unprofessional bird watching too...hope this will be useful
http://www.atsweb.neu.edu/pparimi/checklist.html

Is that a Prinia in the display pic?

Dr.ZeelGandhi said...

<3