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Painted Stork (Mycteria Leucocephala): Population Status, Shift in Food and Behavioral Ecology from Isolated Ponds of Godavari River Basin in Nanded District, India

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Painted Stork (Mycteria Leucocephala): Population Status, Shift in Food and Behavioral Ecology from Isolated Ponds of Godavari River Basin in Nanded District, India Science Research Reporter, 6(1):50-57, (April - 2016) © RUT Printer and Publisher Online, Open Access Available at http://jsrr.net ISSN: 2249-2321 (Print); ISSN: 2249-7846 (Online) Research Article Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala): Population status, shift in food and behavioral ecology from isolated ponds of Godavari River basin in Nanded district, India Chavan Shivaji Prabhakar* and Dilip Dudhmal Aquatic Parasitology, Fisheries and Avian Research Laboratory, Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded – 431606, M. S., India *Email: [email protected] Article Info Abstract Received: 09-02-2016, Painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) recently declared as Near Threatened Revised: 12-03-2016, (NT) stork species by IUCN. There is tremendous pressure on this bird species Accepted: 16-03-2016 especially in searching food and nest building sites in parts of Marathwada region of Maharashtra State. This stork species has sluggish mode of feeding Keywords: and stays for 1-4 hrs at a place, if not disturbed. Anthropogenic activities and Painted Stork, Population, behavioral response of this species in its habitat was observed to reach to the Godavari, Anthropogenic, conclusion that such activities are forcing the storks to change its feeding Behavioral ecology habitat frequently which is increasing the energy demand for flying and food search. Shallow water marshes, wetlands and coastal shallow water (1.0-1.5 ft) of sandy and muddy river beaches with good population of weed fishes and bivalve Mollusks is the ideal feeding habitat for painted storks. But, their feeding is greatly affected due to increased fishing and anthropogenic activities in Godavari river basin. Population and behavior of painted stork especially during feeding was also studied at 03 isolated ponds in Nanded region of Marathwada of Maharashtra State. INTRODUCTION range of distribution and about 25,000 total Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala, Pennant, population of all age groups exist in the world, 1790) one of the common aquatic bird in Indian including about only 10,000-17,000 mature subcontinent and one of the important species from individuals (Urfi, 2011)at present. It is an alarming five genera and 19 species of storks all over the number for the existence of single species in the world (Internet-birds, 2015). Recently, it is whole world which is a major concern. Therefore, categorized as Near Threatened (NT) species of it is important to concentrate on the eradication of ‘Red Data list of avifauna of the World (IUCN). It the problems related to the reducing numbers of was in the category of least concerned (LC) species storks in the days to come which has categorized till year 2004 (Urfi, 2011). Loss of feeding grounds, this stork species into NT. over fishing from the feeding grounds, deforestation Bhaskarpara Ghana National Park, of useful trees for nest building, poaching of adults, Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary AP, Harike Lake Bird predation of eggs and young ones, reduced rate of Sanctuary Punjab, Wild Ass Wild Life Sanctuary egg incubation, starvation of developing young ones Kutch, Gujrat are few Important Bird Areas (IBA) are the major threats to this bird (Urfi, 2007). The identified for the major occurrence of painted storks bird is not endemic to specific region of India but it (Urfi, 2011) but in the Godavari River basin of is resident breeder having about 1, 930, 30 km2 Maharashtra State, recently it has been observed http://jsrr.net 50 ISSN: 2249-7846 (Online) Chavan and Dudhmal in groups of 5-180 (Chavan et al., 2015). There are Similarly, there are great problems against number of aspects which still needs to be painted storks in getting food and suitable feeding investigated that mainly include the environmental grounds. Probably, these considerably large birds factors that make the abundance of storks in habitat spend more time and energy in searching the food favoring nest building and feeding. Tacto-location and suitable feeding areas. Noteworthy, they need by foot and probing by bill type of feeding in the shallow water for feeding which include search of muddy and coastal areas of wetland and water food and actual feeding process (Urfi, 2011). bodies, difference in food and feeding during Disturbance from fishermen, cattle grazers, breeding and non-breeding season of painted storks, poachers and hunters are the major setbacks in their burden of anthropogenic activities for getting fishes feeding activity. Therefore, it is essential to note is preventing easy access of water bodies and that which factors affect the feeding process in wetlands to these birds day by day. Similarly, over painted storks so that these factors can be fishing from feeding grounds of storks and sand eliminated as a part of conservation strategy for this dredging are important reasons for the decreasing important water bird to prevent its next ecological trends of occurrence of Painted storks in many parts degradation from Near Threatened (NT) to of IBA and other common regions of Maharashtra Threatened (T) status and so forth in Godavari river and Andhra Pradesh including Godavari River basin basin especially in Nanded region. (Chavan et al., 2015). Godavari river system is one of the MATERIALS AND METHODS important river systems in India and principal river Study area: basin in Marathwada region of Maharashtra State Godavari river basin and various villages, (Chavan et al., 2015- (b)). Due to high water ponds, back water wetland of reservoirs in parts of demanding crop patterns to grow cash crops like Nanded district and Parbhani district of Maharashtra Banana, Turmeric, Sugarcane, Wheat etc. and also with details of location are as given in Table 1. due to horticulture, there is overexploitation of Avian diversity observed in the region from Order- water from river Godavari and its tributaries and Ciconiformes is as given in Table 2. reservoirs from the main basin. Neither farmers nor Data Collection and analysis Government agencies, private business firms, The survey were conducted between consider that water is a resource to be used by other December 2012 to January 2015. Line transect creatures also. It was observed that the human needs method (Ralf et al, 1997) was used to conduct the from rivers and reservoirs for extracting fish, sand survey of selected region to estimate the abundance and other livelihoods are increasing with day that of painted stork. Observations were carried out forced painted storks to change its food from fish to during morning; evening and night. Photographic shell fish (Chavan et al., 2015). In recent times, the record of painted storks and other avi-fauna was occurrence of undigested hydrophyte plant parts is maintained by using 16.1 Mega Pixel CMOS (42X commonly found in the fecal examination of wide optical zoom) Digital camera model NIKON Painted storks of this region. 510. The identification of painted stork was To estimate the population status of a bird confirmed by using standard literature (Ali and species in a particular area is one of the difficult Ripley, 1978). task due to need of long term systematic The abundance of storks was decided based observation (Li Zuo Wei, 2006). Local migration, on the data of frequency and number of individuals anthropogenic disturbances are the main factors to sited at different habitats (Table 1.) as in Table 2. estimate the population of bird species. But constant The data is represented in the form of abundance, monitoring on the population status and seasonality common and rare. For the statistical analysis of data of Near Threatened species (NT) (Birdlife ‘Biodiversity Calculator’ software was used to International, 2012) like Painted Stork (Mycteria calculate Alpha Diversity, Simpson Index, leucocephala) is most important as an ecological Dominance Index, Simpsons Reciprocal Index, management for this species (Pattanayak et al, Shannon Weiver Index, Margalef’s Richness Index 2008). It is a part of conservation of Painted stork in and Equitability Index. the Godavari river Basin in parts of Maharashtra State. http://jsrr.net 51 ISSN: 2249-7846 (Online) Science Research Reporter, 6(1):50-57, (April - 2016) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION tendency of birds to become alert, to stop activities Painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala, Pennant, and remain stationary at one place and to fly away. 1790) is one of the common stork species from Such behavioral responses shown by storks were Order Ciconiformes, family Ciconidae found in the recorded with distance of disturbance that cause the Indian subcontinent. It is a piscivorous bird needs bird to behave especially was measured first time in shallow water of 20-25 cm depth in the marginal this region (Table 5). There was no conflict area of a water body or coastal shallow water pools amongst the painted stork (s) and other species from of river. Fish is the common food of this bird and family Ciconidae found in the study area. observed bill-probing and tacto-locating food are Distance of disturbance due to various the common methods used to search the food and activities in the habitat of painted stork and around once it gets food (especially fish) it is picked out of the habitat was minimum 2 meters and maximum water and then knocked on the ground or chiseled 1000 meters indicates behavioral sensitivity of this with heavy strong bill and engulfed (Urfi, 2011). It species. To stop foraging and fly away were the was observed always feeding in the shallow water major responses
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