A study conducted by three researchers has identified 66 new bird species in Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Siang region. According to the survey carried out by three researchers a total of 252 bird species have been spotted in the Upper Siang district of the state.
The number, however, according to Anirban Datta-Roy, one of the three researchers (the other two being Vivek Ramachandran and Karthik Teegalapalli) of the survey, is “still very less for the area,” The Indian Express reported.
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Datta-Roy believes there are many more species. And if investigated further, more names will definitely come up.
A paper of the three researchers, “An annotated checklist of the birds of the Upper Siang region, Arunachal Pradesh, India” published in the “Journal of Threatened Taxa” on April 26, however, is one of the most extensive surveys of this nature in the region.
It is a result of a six year long research (2010 – 2016) in geographies that fell outside the boundaries of the “protected areas.”
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The results have thrown up 252 bird species, out of which 66 have been recorded for the first time. The list also includes six globally threatened species.
“We looked at areas managed by the indigenous Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. These were community-managed forests in villages like Bomdo, as well as remoter villages further north: Ramsing, Karko, Shimong, Janbo and Gelling, which shares its border with China,” says Datta-Roy, who is pursuing his PhD with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment in Bengaluru.
The study reveals the existence of nine species of cuckoos (Asian Emerald, Common Hawk, and Drongo, among others) and migrating waterfowl (Greylag Goose, Common Teal, Northern Pintail, Little Grebe and Mallard), which had not been reported earlier.
“It’s perhaps because many species come here towards the end of winter. Earlier studies have been restricted to the winter months,” the newspaper quoted Datta-Roy as saying.