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BUCEROSBuceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) ENVIS Newsletter: Avian Ecology & Inland Wetlands Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3, May-December 2003 Annotated checklist of the Birds of Western Maharashtra Compiled by Anand Prasad Bombay Natural History Society 2003 Buceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) ENVIS ENVIS (Environmental Information System) is a network of subject specific nodes located in various institutions throughout the country. The Focal Point of the present 25 ENVIS centres in India is at the Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, which further serves as the Regional Service Centre (RCS) for INFOTERRA, the global information network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to cater to environment information needs in the South Asian sub-region. The primary objective of all ENVIS centres is to collect, collate, store and disseminate environment related information to various user groups, including researchers, policy planners and decision makers. The ENVIS Centre at the Bombay Natural History Society was set up in June 1996 to serve as a source of information on Avian Ecology and Inland Wetlands. ENVIS TEAM AT THE BNHS Centre-in-Charge : Mr. J.C. Daniel Project Coordinator : Dr. Asad R. Rahmani Senior Scientist : Dr. Gopinathan Maheswaran Scientist : Dr. Ashok Verma Editorial Adviser : Dr. Gayatri Ugra Citation: Prasad, A. (2003) Annotated checklist of the Birds of Western Maharashtra. Buceros 8 (2 & 3): 1-174 Cover Photograph: Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii by V. I. Thayil Cover Design and page layout: Mr. Gopi Naidu, BNHS. Copyright BNHS: All rights reserved. This publication shall not be reproduced either in full or in part in any form, either in print or electronic or any other medium, without the prior written permission of the Bombay Natural History Society. Bombay Natural History Society, Hornbill HOuse, S.B. Singh Road, Mumbai 400 023, Maharashtra, India. Tel.: (91-22) 2282 1811, Fax: (91-22) 2283 7615 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.envisbnhs.org Buceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) Contents Preface ............................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgements ......................................................................... 2 Introduction ..................................................................................... 3 Topography ..................................................................................... 3 Climate ............................................................................................ 4 Vegetation ....................................................................................... 4 References ...................................................................................... 4 Interpretation ................................................................................... 7 Key to geographical terms ............................................................... 8 Conservation concerns ..................................................................... 9 Nomenclature .................................................................................. 12 Deletions and records which need further verification ........................ 149 Key to the observers and contributors .............................................. 153 Main references ............................................................................... 154 Specific references ........................................................................... 156 Index to common names .................................................................. 168 Buceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) Preface During the last five years while working on the Important Bird Areas Programme, I have gone through thousands of research papers, reports, management plans, books and bird checklists (both published and unpublished) and personal notes, but I have rarely come across as comprehensive a checklist as the prepared one by Anand Prasad. A couple of months ago, when Anand sent to me his draft checklist enquiring whether we can publish it in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, I found it too long for the Journal but decided to publish it as a special issue of Buceros. This is certainly a special issue to me. We need good, well-researched bird checklists of different regions of India. Readers will be surprised to know that we do not even have reliable bird checklists of some of our well-known national parks and sanctuaries. Glamorous page- 3 species such as the tiger, the rhino and the elephant take away so much of our attention that very few people look for birds such as the White-bellied Minivet Pericrocotus erythropygius or Tytlers Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus tytleri, which are perhaps as interesting as the mega-vertebrates. Good checklists help us to know the changes taking place in our environment. Although loosely-used terms such as common or rare do not have much scientific value unless they are qualified, they still give us some idea about the status of birds in a particular area. The bird that was common a few decades ago could have become rare now or vice versa. Most of our birds are declining in numbers, but not many people realize that some species have expanded their range. The finest example in this context is the Pied Myna (Sturnus contra) or Asian Pied Starling as it is known now. Humayan Abdulali and Salim Ali first noticed it in 1940 in the Bombay area. Now, it is a fairly common bird in this region. I am not a great fan of various bird egroups that have sprouted all over the country, mainly because most of them are not moderated, resulting in highly dubious records coming into circulation. Personally, I never use egroup records of bird distribution in my research papers. Anand has used many records from egroups, but he has assured me that he has verified all the records. I hope Anands Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Western Maharashtra would stimulate others to prepare similar checklists of their areas. Let us start with state checklists. Aasheesh Pittie and Siraj Taher had prepared a detailed checklist of birds of Andhra Pradesh. We need similar annotated checklists of all the other states. The BNHS would be interested in publishing them in Buceros. Asad R. Rahmani 1 Buceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) Acknowledgements Many thanks to all those whose combined help has made the project possible, especially Mark Adams, (Natural History Musem, UK, NHM), Badruddin Ali, Shardul Bajikar, Bombay Natural History Society library staff, Paul Bradbeer, Erach Bharucha, Vivek Broome, Michael Casement (Royal Naval Birdwatching Society, RNBS), Danish Library staff, Prakash Gole, Tim and Carol Inskipp, Nitin Jamdar, Bindu Kapadia, Krys Kazmierczak, Vivek Kulkarni, Krushnamegh Kunte, Heinz Lainer, Rashid Maxwell, Sunjoy Monga, Taej Mundkur, Sanjeev Nalavade, Rishad Naoroji, Mark Newsome, Satish Pande, Leon Pereira, Aasheesh Pittie, Robert Prys-Jones (NHM), Rahul Purandare, Bishwarup Raha, Ulhas Rane, Pamela Rasmussen, Venkap Santharam, Kanwar B Singh, Sanjay and Anchal Sondhi, Saleel Tambe, and Francis Ward (RNBS). 2 Buceros Vol. 8, Nos. 2 & 3 (2003) Annotated checklist of the Birds of Western Maharashtra Compiled by Anand Prasad ecord keeping is an extremely valuable taxa at the subspecies level become extremely important conservation tool, especially in the rapidly when a subspecies is suddenly promoted to the species R changing world of today. In the absence of level and although conservation should ideally be national surveys, which usually require a high degree of concerned with all levels of diversity, the priority is organisation and a large, fairly experienced team of usually on the conservation of a species or future, possible birdwatchers, it is even more important to collate data species. from various sources to create a record database. Once a The aim of this work has been to collate records fairly reliable database has been established, it can be from every known published source and to bring this used as a benchmark for all past and future surveys and information into a coherent whole. Comparisons have compilations and used to measure any population then been made with historical works and any obvious changes which may have occurred, and hopefully detect population changes which have occurred, have been any area of conservation concern. highlighted. It is hoped that this work will be useful in There have been only two previous works which detecting any future population trends. have tried to list and quantify the bird population of Breeding has been poorly studied in recent years Western Maharashtra. Butler’s paper from 1881 ‘A and most of the best works have covered the whole of tentative catalogue of the birds of the Deccan and South the Indian Subcontinent. In an area of such size there is a Mahratta Country’ was the first and only attempt to collect great deal of regional variation and in fact even within data for the whole region and has been an extremely Western Maharashtra there is sufficient difference in important comparative source, especially as, with the breeding dates from north to south and from Deccan to exception of Belgaum, his area roughly overlaps the Konkan to warrant further study. All known breeding geographical area of Western Maharashtra. In 1973, records from the region are included herein, in order to fill Abdulali compiled a ‘Checklist of the birds of Maharashtra the need for more regional data, although records have with notes on their status around Bombay,’ which as the not been specifically divided