In a first, Ahmedabad to get bird atlas; field visits to start today

Devvratsinh Mori, an ornithologist and coordinator for the project from Ahmedabad University, who is also a member of Gujarat State Board for Wildlife, said that they have been working on the project for the past one year. After preparing the protocol for the project, Mori said, it will now begin on ground with field surveys from Saturday.

“As per the protocol decided, we are going to cover the 400 square km area of Ahmedabad city within Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation limits. Based on the number of qualified volunteers that we have got, it has been decided to cover 33% of the city while dividing the city into 61 grids measuring 3×3 square km to facilitate the bird surveys. Each grid is subdivided into nine sub-cells, each covering an area of 1×1 sq km,” said Mori.

According to Mori, in total, 22 teams of volunteers have been formed and each team also has a coordinator who is a senior expert bird enthusiast. The project has been technically supported by Bird Count India — an informal partnership of organisations and groups working towards increasing knowledge about birds, and e-Bird — an online data depository of birds worldwide.

“The field visits will be done in winters and summers to track seasonal movements of the birds. Accordingly, the first set of visits will take place in December and January while the summer visits will be made in May and June. The volunteers will feed their checklists on e-Bird. And after the visits, the data will be studied and then a research paper will be published with the Bird Atlas of Ahmedabad city,” Mori said.
Professor Shomen Mukherjee, who teaches at the Ahmedabad University, is also associated with the project.

Mukherjee said, “Ahmedabad will be the first city in Gujarat to have its bird atlas. The cities of Mysuru and Coimbatore have their bird atlases. Entire Kerala state has its bird atlas. Pune city has also started a project to have its bird atlas. ”

Talking about the project and its significance, BCSG secretary Bakul Trivedi said, “Through such a (formal) study, we will be able to understand the diversity and abundance of birds in the city.”