BIRDS- (AVIFAUNNA)
1.1 Aves (birds):
Birds (Class: Aves) are bipedal, warm blooded, egg-laying vertebrate animals. Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the jurassic period and the earliest known bird is the late jurassic Archaeopteryx. Ranging is size from tiny hummingbirds to the huge ostrich and emu, there are around 10,000 known living bird species in the world, making them the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates. Present day distribution of animals, especially birds in the Indian peninsula has its roors in the geographical history (Pande, 2003).
Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a light but strong skeleton. Most birds have forelimbs modified as wings and can fly, though the ratites and several others, particularly endemic island species have also lost the ability to fly. Birds arose in the Jurassic from the ornithiscian dinosaurs and have many characters resembling those of reptiles (Jordan & Vishnol, 1973).
Many species of bird undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter more irregular movements. Birds are social and communicate using visual signals and through calls and song and participate in social behaviours including cooperative hunting, cooperative breeding, flocking and mobbing of predators. Birds are primarily socially monogamous with engagement in extra-pair copulations being common in some species; other species have polygamous breeding systems. Eggs are usually laid in a nest and incubated and most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching.
Birds are economically important to humans, many are important sources of food, acquired either through hunting or farming, they also provide other products. Some species, particularly song birds and parrots, are popular as pets. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture form religion to poetry and popular music. About 120 -130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since 1600 and hundreds more prior to this. Currently around 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities and efforts are underway to protect them.
1.2 Distribution of birds:
Birds breed on all seven continents with the highest diversity occurring in tropical regions, this may be due either to higher speciation rates in the tropics or to higher extinction rates at higher latitudes. They are able to live and feed in most of the world’s terrestrial habitats, reaching their southern extreme in the snow petrel’s breeding colonies, found as far as 440 km inland in Antarctica . Several families of birds have adapted to life both on the world’s oceans and in them, with some seabird species coming shore only to breed and some penguins recorded diving as deeply as 300 m.
Many species have established naturalized breeding populations in areas to which they have been introduced by humans. Some of these introductions have been deliberate; the ring necked pheasant, for example, has been introduced around the world as a game bird. Others are accidental, such as the monk parakeets that have escaped from captivity and established breeding colonies in a number of North American cities. Some species including the cattle egret, yellow-headed caracara and galahs, have spread naturally for beyond their original ranges as agricultural practices creased suitable new habitat. Birds constitute a well denned group of vertebrates. They posses a sense of strongly marked characters, which are hardly distinguished in other class. (Bhamrah & Juneja 1993)
1.3 Anatomy of Birds:
Compared with other vertebrate birds have a body plan that shows many unusual adaptation, mostly to facilitate flight. The skeleton consists of bones which are very light. They have large pneumatic (air filled) cavities which connect with the respiratory system. The skull bones are fused and do not show cranial sutures. The orbits are large and separated by a bony septum. The spine has cervical, thoracic, lumbar and caudal regions with the number of cervical (neck) vertebrae highly variable and especially flexible, but movement is reduced in the anterior thoracic vertebrae and absent in the later vertebrae. The last few are fused with pelvis to form the synsacrum. The ribs are flattened and the sternum is keeled for the attachment of flight muscles, except in the flightless bird orders. The forelimbs are modified into the wings.
Like the reptiles, birds are primarily uricotelic, that is their kidneys extract nitrogenous wastes form their blood stream and excrete it as uric acid instead of urea or ammonia. The uric acid is excreted along with feaces as a semisolid waste and they do not have a separate urinary bladder or opening. Some birds such as humming birds however can be facultatively amnotelic, excreting most of the nitrogenous wastes as ammonia. They also excrete creatine rather than creatinine as in mammals. This material, as well as the output of the intestines, emerges from the cloaca.
The cloaca is a multi-purpose opening, their wastes are expelled through it, they mate by joining cloaca, and females lay eggs out of it. In addition, many species of birds regurgitate pellets.
Birds have one of the most complex respiratory system of all animals groups. When a bird inhales, 75% of the fresh air bypassed the lungs and flows directly into a posterior air sac which extends from the lungs and connects with air spaces in the bones and fills then with air.
The other 25% of the air goes directly into the lungs. When the bird exhales, the used air flows out of the lung and the stored fresh air form the posterior air sac is simultaneously forced into the lungs. Thus, a bird’s lungs receive a constant supply of fresh air during both inhalation and exhalation. Sound production is achieved using the syrinx, a muscular chamber with several tympanic membranes, situated at the lower end of the trachea where it bifurcates. The bird’s heart has four chambers and the right aortic arch gives rise to systemic aorta (unlike in the mammals where the left arch is involved). The post cava receives blood form the limbs via the renal portal system. Birds, unlike mammals, have nucleated erythrocytes, i.e. red blood cells which retain a nucleus.
The nervous system is large relative to the bird’s size. The most developed part of the brain is the one that controls the flight related function, while the cerebellum coordinates movement and the cerebrum controls behaviours patterns, navigation, mating and nest building. Birds with eyes on the sides of their heads have a wide visual field, while birds with eyes on the front of their heads like owls have binocular vision and can estimate field depth. Most birds have a poor sense of smell with notable exception including kiwis, vultures and the tubenoses. The visual system is usually highly developed. Water birds have special flexible lenses, allowing accommodation for vision in air and water. Some species also have dual fovea. Birds are tetrachromatic, possessing ultraviolet cone cells in the eye. This allows them to perceive ultraviolet light, which is used in courtship. Many birds show plumage patterns in ultraviolet that are invisible to the human eye, so that some birds, whose sexes appear similar are distinguished by the presence of ultraviolet reflective patches of feathers. Male blue tits have an ultraviolet reflective crown patch which is displayed in courtship by posturing and raising of their nape feathers. Ultraviolet light is also used in foraging, kestrels have been shown to search for prey by detecting the UV reflective urine trail marks left on the ground by rodents. The eyelids of a bird are not used in blinking, instead the eye is lubricated by the nictitating membrane, the third eyelid that moves horizontally. The nictitating membrane also covers the eye and acts as a contact lens in many aquatic birds. When sleeping the lower eyelids are raised. The bird retina has a fan shaped blood supply system called pecten. The avian ear lacks external pinnate but is covered by feathers, although in some birds (the asio, bubo and otus owls, for example) these feathers form tufts which resemble ears. The inner ear has a cochlea but it is not spiral as in mammals.
Some birds use chemical defenses against predators. Some procellariformes can eject an guinea, secrete a powerful neurotoxin in their skin and feathers.
1.4 Morphology of bird:
Birds constitute a well defined group of vertebrate animals. As a class they form a more homogeneous group than any other class of vertebrates. They possess a series of strongly marked characters such as distinguish hardly any other class.
The diagnostic features of birds are:
(1) Feathered, air-breathing warm-blooded, oviparous, bipedal flying vertebrates.
(2) Body is more or les spindle-shaped and divisible in four distinct region, head, neck, trunk and tail. Jaw bones prolonged into a toothless beak or bill. Neck is long and flexible. Tail is short and stumpy.
(3) Limbs are two pairs. Forelimbs are modified as wings for flying. Hindlimbs or legs are large, and variously adapted for walking, running, scratching, perching, food capturing, swimming or wading etc. Each foot usually bears four clawed toes, of which the first or hallux is directed backwards.
(4) Exoskeleton is epidermal and horny, represented by (i) feathers forming a non conducting body covering for warmth, (ii) scales on the legs, similar to those of reptiles, (iii) claws on the toes and (iv) sheaths on the beaks.
(5) Skin is dry and devoid of glands except the oil preen gland at the root of tail.
(6) Pectoral muscles of flight are well developed.
(7) Endoskeleton fully ossified, light but strong and without epiphyses. Long bones pneumatic or hollow and have no marrow. Usually, there is a fusion of bones.
(8) Skull smooth and mono condylic bearing a single occipital condyle. Cranium large and domelike. Sutures indistinct.
(9) Lower jaw or mandible consists of 5 or 6 bones and articulates with quadrate.
(10) Vertebral column short. Centra of vertebrae heterocoelous (saddle-shaped). Cervical vertebrae numerous, bear small cervical ribs. Some thoracic vertebrae fused together. A synsacrum result by fusion of posterior thoracic, lumbar, sacral and anterior caudal vertebrae. Tail vertebra, few compressed laterally and the last 3 or 4 fused into a plough shaped bone, pygostyle.
(11) Sternum large usually with a vertical mid ventral keel for attachment of large flight muscles.
(12)Ribs are double-headed (bicephalous) and bear posteriorly directed uncinate processes.
(13) Both clavicles and single, interclavicle fused to form a V- shaped bone, called furcula or wishbone.
(14) Pelvic girdle large, strong and fused with synsacrum throughout its length. Public and ischiatic symphyses lacking. Acetabulum perforated.
(15) Proximal carpals free. Distal carpals fuse with three metacarpals to form carpometacarpus.
(16) Proximal tarsals and tibia fused to form ubiotarsus. Distal tarsals fused with II, III and IV metatarsals to form tarso-metatarsus. I metatarsal remains free.
(17) Ankle joint is inter-tarsal.
(18) Oesophagus is frequently ditated into a crop for quick feeding and storage. Stomach divided into a glandular proventriculus and muscular gizzard. Junction of small intestine and rectum marked by a pair of rectal caeca. A three-chambered cloaca present.
(19) Heart completely 4-chambered. Only right aortic (systemic) arch persists in adult. Renal portal system vestigial. Red blood corpuscles nucleated.
(20) Birds are the first vertebrates to have warm blood. Body temperature is regulated (homoiothermous).
(21) Respiration by compact, spongy, non-distensible lungs continuous with thin-walled air-sacs.
(22) Larynx without voice corks. A sound box or syrinx, producing voice, lies at or near the junction of trachea and bronchi.
(23) Kidneys metanephric and 3-lobed. Ureters open into cloaca. Urinary bladder absent. Birds are urecotelic. Excretory substance are eliminatd with faeces.
(24) Brain is large but smooth. Cerebrum, cerebellum and optic lobes greatly developed. Cranial nerves are 12 pairs.
(25) Olfactory organs are poor. Middle ear contains a single ossicle. Eyes are large and possess nictitating membranes, sclerotic plates and a vascular pectin.
(26) Sexes are separate. Sexual dimorphism often well marked. Male has a pair of abdominal testes and a pair of sperm ducts. A copulatory organ absent except in ratites, ducks, geese, etc. Female has a single functional left ovary and oviduct.
(27) Fertilization is internal, proceeded by copulation and courtship. Females are oviparous. Eggs are large with much yolk and have hard calcareous shell.
(28) Eggs are develop by external incubation. Cleavage is discoidal The extra embryonic membranes (amnion, chorion, allantois and yolk-sac) present.
(29) Newly hatched young is fully formed (precocial) or immature (altricial).
(30) Parental care is well marked.
1.5 Behaviour of birds:
Most birds are diurnal, but some birds, such as many species of owls and nightjars are nocturnal or crepuscular (active during twilight hours). Many coastal waders feed when the tides are appropriate, by day or night. In 1941 Bombay Natural History Society first published “The book of Indian Birds” by Salim Ali describing 181 species of common bird (Salim Ali, 1983).
1.6 Diet and feeding of birds:
Birds feed on a variety of materials including nectar, fruit, plants, seeds, carrion and various types of small animals including other birds, because birds have no teeth. The digestive system of birds is specially adapted to process deal with unmasticated food items that are usually swallowed whole.
Various feeding strategies are used by birds. Gleaning for insects, invertebrates, fruit and seeds is used by many species. sallying form a branch and flycatching, for insects is used by many songbirds. Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds, lorikeets, sunbirds, honeyeaters and some other songbirds is facilitated by specially adapted brushy tongues and in many cases bills designed to fit co-adapted flowers, Probing for invertebrates is used by kiwis and shorebirds with niche separation. Pursuit diving is used by falcons and accipiters in the air, and by loons, diving ducks and penguins in the water. Plunge diving is used by sulids, kingfishers and terns. Three species of prion, the flamingos and some ducks are filter feeders. Geese and dabbling ducks are primarily grazers. Some species will engage in kieptoparasitism, stealing food items from other birds; frigate birds, gulls, and skuas employ this type of feeding behaviour. Kleptoparasitism is not thought to play a significant part of the diet of any species, and is instead a supplement to food obtained by hunting; a study of great frigatebirds stealing form masked boobies estimated that the frigatebirds could at most obtain 40% of the food they needed, and of average obtained only 5%. Finally, some birds, such as gulls and vultures, are scavengers. Some birds may employ many strategies to obtain food, or feed on a variety of food items and are called generalists ,while others are considered specialists, concentrating time and effort of specific food items or having a single strategy to obtain food.
1.7 Habitat of birds:
The diverse food habits and life-histories of birds are associated with a rage of ecological positions. While some birds are generalists, others are highly specialized in their habitat or food requirements. Even within a habitat such as a forest, the niches occupied by different groups of birds are varied with some species using the forest canopy, others using the space under the canopy, while still others may use the branches and so on. In addition forest birds may be classified into different feeding guilds such as insectivores, frugivores and nectarivores. Aquatic birds show other food habits such as fishing, plant eating and piracy or kieptoparasitism. The birds of prey specialize in hunting mammals or other birds while the vultures have specialized as scavengers.
Some nectar-feeding birds are also important pollinators of plants and many frugivores play a key role in seed dispersal. Numerous plants have adapted to using birds as their primary pollinators, and both flower and plant have coevolved together, in some cases to the point where the flower primary pollinator is the only species capable of reaching the nectar.
Birds have important impacts on the ecology of islands. In many cases they reach islands that mammals do not, and in which they may fulfill ecological roles played by larger animals; for example in New Zealand
Today the plants of New Zealand
1.8 Breeding of birds:
The vast majority (95%) of bird species are socially monogamous, although polygamy. (2%) and polyandry (1%), polygynandry. (where a female pairs with several males and the male pairs with several females) and promiscuity systems also occur. Some species may use more than one system depending on the circumstances. Monogamous species of males and females pair for the breeding season, in some cases, the pair bonds may persist for a number of years or even the lifetime of the pair.
The advantage of monogamy for birds is biparental care. In most groups of animals, male parental care is rare, but in birds it is quite common, in fact, it is more extensive in birds than in any other vertebrate class. In birds, male care can be seen as important or essential to female fitness, in some species the females are unable to successfully raise a brood without the help of the male. Polygamous breeding systems arise when females are able to raise broods without the help of males. There is sometimes a division of labour in monogamous species, with the roles of incubation, nest site defence, chick feeding and territory defence being either shared or undertaken by one sex.
While social monogamy is common in birds, infidelity, in the form of extra-pair copulations is common in many socially monogamous species. These can take the form of forced copulation (or rape) in ducks and other anatids or more usually between dominant males and females partnered with subordinate males. It is thought that the benefit to females comes from getting better genes for her offspring as well as an insurance against the possibility of infertility in the male. Males in species that engage in extra-pair copulations will engage in mate-guarding in order to ensure parentage of the offspring they raise.
Breeding usually involves some form of courtship display, most often performed by the male. Most are rather simple, and usually involve some type of song. Some displays can be quite elaborate, using such varied methods as tail and wing drumming, dancing, aerial flights and communal leks depending on the species. Females are most often involved with partner selection, although in the polyandrous phalaropes the males choose brightly colored females. Courtship feeding, billing and preening are commonly performed between partners, most often after birds have been paired and mated. In Birds the most characteristic feature being the more or less complete atrophy of right ovary and oviduct (Marshall
1.9 Territories, nesting and Incubation of birds:
Many birds actively defend a territory from others of the same species during the breeding season. Large territories are protected in order to protect the food source for their chicks. Species that are unable to defend feeding territories, such as seabirds and swifts, often breed in colonies instead, this is thought to offer protection from predators. Colonial breeders will defend small nesting sites and competition between and within species for nesting sites can be intense.
All birds lay amniotic eggs with hard shells made mostly of calcium carbonate. The color of eggs is controlled by number of factors, those of hole and burrow sensing species tend to be white or pale, while those of open nesters such as charadriiformes are camouflaged. There are many exceptions to this pattern, however, the ground nesting nightjars have pale eggs, camouflage being provided instead by the bird’s plumage. Species that are victims of brood parasites like the dideric Cuckoo will vary their egg colors in order to improve the chances of spotting a cuckoo’s egg, and female cuckoos need match their hosts.
The eggs are usually laid in a nest, which can be highly elaborate, like those created by weavers and oropendolas, or extremely primitive, like some albatrosses, which are no more than a scrape on the ground. Some species have no nest, the cliff nesting common guillemot lays its egg on bare rock and the egg of the emperor penguin is kept between the body and feet; this is especially prevalent in ground nesting species where the newly hatched youngs are precocial. Most species build more elaborate nests, which can be cups, domes, plates, beds scrapes, mounds or burrows. Most nests are built in shelter and hidden to reduce the risk of predation, more open nests are usually colonial or built by larger birds capable of defending the nest. Nests are mostly built out of plant matter, some species specifically select plants such as yarrow which have chemicals that reduce nest parasites such as mites leading to increased chick survival. Nests are often lined with feathers in order to improve the retention of heat.
Incubation, which regulates the temperature to keep it optimum for chick development, usually begins after the last egg has been laid. Incubation duties are often shared in monogamous species, in polygamous species a singe parent undertakes all duties. Warmth from parents passes to the eggs through brood patches, areas of bare skin on the abdomen or breast of the incubating birds. Incubation can be an energetically demanding process, for example adult albatrosses lose as much as 83 g of body weight a day. Warmth for the incubation of the eggs of megapodes comes from the sun, decaying vegetation or from volcanic sources. Incubation periods last between 10 days (in species of woodpeckers, cuckoos and passerine birds) to over 80 days (in albatrosses and kiwis).Birds, however, are perhaps the class of animal least affected directly by its climatic surroundings (Salim Ali,1949).
1.10 Parental care and fledging of birds:
Chicks can be helpless of independent at birth or be at any stage in between. The helpless chicks are known as altricial and tend to be born, small, naked and blind Chicks that are mobile and feathered at birth are precocial. Chicks can also be semi-precocial and semi-altricial. Altricial chicks require help in thermoregulation and need to be brooded for longer than precocial chicks.
The length and nature of parental care varies widely amongst different orders and species. At one extreme, parental care in megapodes ends at nest building, the newly-hatched chick digs itself out of the nest mound without parental assistance and can fend for itself immediately. At the other extreme many seabirds have extended periods of parental care, the longest being great frigatebird, the chicks of which take up to six months to fledge and are fed by the parents for up to another 14 months.
In some species the care of young is shared between both parents, in others it is the responsibility of just one sex. In some species other members of the same speices will help the breeding pair in raising the young. These helpers are usually close relatives such as the chicks of the breeding pair from previous breeding seasons. Alloparenting is particularly common in the corvids, but has been observed in as different species as the rifleman, red kite and australian magpie.
The point at which chicks fledge varies dramatically. The chicks of the synthliboramphus murrelets, like the ancient murrelet, leave the nest the night after they hatch following their parents calls out to sea, where they are raised away from terrestrial predators. Some other species, especially ducks, move their chicks away form the nest at an early age. In most species chicks leave the nest soon after or just before they are able to fly. Parental care after fledging varies, in albatrosses chicks leave the nest alone and receive no further help, other species continue some supplementary feeding after fledging. Chicks may also follow their parents during first migration.Summer plumage is the general tern for the plumage worn during the breeding season.(Cerny,1975).
1.11 Migration of birds:
One of the most spectacular events concerned with bird life is the seasonal migration of many species, and their uncanny ability to navigate. It has intrigued mankind for many centuries. Man has looked up in wonder as clouds of migrating birds darkened the skies. Many animals migrate but none to such distances and with such regularity as the birds .Among some of the most fascinating behaviours of birds is the migration of birds .which implies the regular movements birds between their summer and winter homes.(Agarwal & Delela,1978).
[I] Definition of migration:
In a broad sense, “migration”. As defined by cahn “is a periodic passing of animals from one place to another, (L, migrare, to travel)”. When applied to other animals, it means their dispersal or immigration, implying no return journey. On the other hand, bird migration is a two-way journey. It means a regular, periodic, to and fro movement of a population of some birds between their summer and winter homes, or from a breeding and nesting place to a feeding and resting place.
[II] Migratory and resident birds:
Not all species of birds take part in the great pageant of migration. Bobwhite and the ruffled sand grouse do not migrate at all. Birds which remain throughout the year in a country are know as residents. Every gradation may be found between resident birds which do not migrate and migratory birds which cover thousands of miles in their periodic journeys.
[III] Kinds of migration:
Migration in birds takes place in a variety of manners, some of which are as follows: 1. Latitudinal migration. 2. Longitudial migration. 3. Altitudinal migration. 4. Partial migration. 5. Irregular of vagrant migration. 6. Seasonal migration.
[IV] Modes of flight in migration:
1. Nocturnal and diurnal flight: Ducks gulls, shore birds and many others may migrate at night or in the day.
2. Segregation during migration: Certain birds, such as night hawks, swifts and kingfishers, travel in separate companies, while swallows, turkeys, bluebirds, etc. travel in mixed companies of several species, due to similarity in their size, method of search of food, etc. In some species, the male and female members travel separately. Males arrive first build the nests. The young birds generally accompany the females.
3. Range of migration: The distances traveled by migratory birds depend upon local conditions and the species concerned. The Himalayan snow partridges descend a few hundred feet only and cover hardly a mile or two, while the chicades come down nearly 8,000 feet. The champion long-distance migrant is unquestionably the arctic tern. It spends the summer and breeds along the northemmost icefree coasts of Labrador, far inside the Arctic circle . Then it travels a distance of 11,000 miles to reach its destination to the edges of Antarctica in winter, and returns again through the same distance in summer. European whit stork winters in South Africa
4. Altitude of flight: Some birds fly quite close to the earth, while most routine migration probably takes place within 3,000 feet of the earth. Radar has shown that some small land birds, migrating at night, fly at 5,000 to 14,000 feet. Some species even cross the Andes and the Himalayas at altitudes of 20,000 feet or more.
5. Speed and duration of flight: Average flight velocity of most small birds seldom exceeds 30 miles per hour. The greatest speed, recorded in India Alaska to South America , a distance of 2,400 miles.
6. Regularity of migration: Several species of migratory birds show a striking regularity, year after year, in their timings of arrival and departure. In spite of long distances traveled or vagaries of weather, they are often punctual within a day or two in their time of arrival. Another remarkable feature, besides punctuality, is that they sometimes come back to the same breeding place year after year.
7. Routes of migration: The data furnished from lighthouses and ships reveal that migratory birds usually follow definite lines of flight. Observations by telescopes and radars show that nocturnal migration of small land birds proceeds with the general airflow on a broad front. In spring, it occurs northwards along warm air currents from the south, and in autumn, southward on the cool winds of the north. Deviation in path occurs due to configuration of land, coastline, courses of great rivers or intervening mountain chains, etc.
[V] Problems of migration:
The perplexing problems of migration have puzzled man ever since prehistoric times when he stated watching the flights of birds and pondered their disappearance in the fall and their reappearance in the spring. It was the most intriguing mystery, resolving itself into separate problems, such as:
(1) How do migratory birds finds their way?
(2) What was the original cause of migration?
(3) What is the stimulus staring migration?
(4) What is the purpose or advantage of migration?
(5) How are the long flights of many species sustained?
Many of these problems have been solved by the modern scientists.
1.12 Communication in birds:
Visual communication in birds serves a number of functions and is manifested in both plumage and behaviour. Plumage can be used to access and assert social dominance display breeding condition in sexually selected species, even make a threatening display, such as the threat display of the sun bittern, which mimics a large possible predator. This display is used to ward off potential predator such as hawks, and to protect young chicks. Variation in plumage also allows for identification, particularly between species.
Visual communication includes ritualised displays, such as those which signal aggression or submission or those which are used in the formation of pair bonds. These ritualised behaviours develop from non signaling actions such as preening, adjustments of feather position, pecking or other behaviours. The most elaborate displays are shown during courtship, such as the breeding dances of the albatrosses, where the successful formation of a life long pair and requires both partners to practice a unique dance and the birds of paradise, where the breeding success of males depends on plumage and display quality. Male birds can demonstrate their fitness through construction; females of weaver species, such as the baya weaver, may choose mates with good nest building skills, while bowerbirds attract mates through constructing bowers and decorating them with bright objects,
In addition to visual communication, birds are renowned for their auditory skills. Calls and in some species song, are the major means by which birds communicate with sound. Though some birds use mechanical sounds, for example driving air through their feathers, as do the coeno corypha snipes of New Zealand
Calls are used for variety of purposes, several of which may be tied into an individual song. They are used to advertise when seeking a mate, either to attract a mate, aid identification of potential mates or aid in bond formation (often with combined with visual communication ). They can convey information about the quality of male and aid in female choice. They are used to claim and maintain territories. Calls can also be used to identify individuals, aiding parents in finding chicks in crowded colonies or adults reuniting with mates at the start of the breeding season. Calls may be used to warn other birds of potential predators, calls of this nature may be detailed and convey specific information about the nature of the threat.
1.13 Economic importance of birds:
Birds occupy an important position in the animal kingdom, specially in relation to man. Economically, they are both useful and harmful to mans interests.
I] Some of the important uses of birds to mankind are as follows:
1. As food: The demand of flesh and eggs of bird has given rise to the paying poultry industry. Fowl is supposed to be a delicacy and its eggs are considered to be the best standard food, second only to milk. They are also used in toffies, pastries, cakes, and biscuits, etc. Several birds have been domesticated and hybridized by man, some for many centuries. Hundreds of varieties of fowls, pigeons, turkeys, ducks and geese, have been raised to produce better qualities of feathers, flesh and messengers, etc. In China
2. In industry, art and ornamentation:
Feathers of bird have been a great boon to mankind. They have been used extensively for pillows, quilts, blankets, clothing, and sleeping bags. The down feathers of water bird such as ducks and geese, provide the warmest insulation and much used for arctic clothing, ski attire and for sub-zero sleeping bags. Feathers with beautiful and distinctive color or shape serve native peoples and modern women for ornamentation and adornment in a variety of ways. Decorative feathers now come from domesticated poultry, striches and rheas. Many natives apply feathers of rheas are used as feather dusters in Brazil and Argentina
3. As currency: In Santa Cruz Island in South Pacific, the scarlet fathers of the tiny honeyeater are woven into belts, which are still used as currency by the natives. Ten such belts can buy even a bride.
4. A fertilizer: The faecal matter of birds, called guano, has been extensively used as fertilizer as it contains nitrogen, phosphates, calcium iron etc. On islands off the coast of chile (South America ), where little rains fall and which are breeding places for billions of migratory and sea birds, the guano accumulates in enormous quantities which is mined and exported to other countries.
5. A pollinators: Many humming birds, living in groves and meadows on flowering plants aid in their pollination. The fruit- eating birds help in the dispersal of the fruit – seeds.
6. In biological control: Birds are good friends of farmers as they exercise biological control over injurious crop pests. Insectivorous birds, such as flycatchers and woodpeckers, consume millions of tons of harmful insects, while seed eating birds do a similar favour by eating thousands of tons of noxious weed seeds annually. Birds of prey such as hawks, eagles and owls, kill and devour countless thousands of rodents, such as field- mice, hares, rabbits and ground squirrels etc. that might otherwise overrun agricultural crops.
7. As predators: Peacocks, eagles, kites and other carnivorous birds are destroyers of several venomous and injurious creatures, such as scorpions, snakes, etc.
8. As scavengers: Carrion cating birds, like vultures, hawks, eagles and crows, are of great sanitary value, as they feed upon the dead bodies and decaying organic substances.
9. In medicine: Flesh and feathers of birds have been used in may Ayurvedic and Unani medicines. Their bodies are warm and so in Unani system it is prescribed to keep them in contact with the chest in lung diseases. The eggs of fowl is used in tonics and various medicines. Flesh of pigeon is said to be good for the patients of paralysis. The egg of fowl has great experimental value, being used as a medium to grow cultures of viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematode larvae, etc.
10. As messengers: Pigeons have been trained and used as messengers in wars and love affairs from very early days.
11. As signals: Many birds profess changes in seasons. In India
12. For amusement: Millions of hunters all over the world find great recreation in hunting game birds. Duck, quails, heron, etc, have been sought as game in Europe for centuries. Many birds produce beautiful songs we all love to hear. Many birds produce beautiful songs we all love to hear. Many of them have been domesticated for their ability as singers, a conspicuous example being canary. For centuries man has kept parrots, mainas, parakeets and several other birds as pets in cages and aviaries, for their plumage and their ability to repeat human words. Pigeons, cocks and partridges have been tamed for play. Certain birds (parrots, bulbuls, etc.) are trained to perform strange feats in public and earn money for the juggler.
13. Aesthetic value: From the aesthetic viewpoint, birds are hard to surpass. No other group of animals can variety and beauty of the colors of birds which, in nature, is surpassed only by the colors of flowers. Bird- study with field glasses and cameras has provided a never- ending healthful outdoor recreation for millions of bird watchers all over the world.
II] Injurious birds:
On the contrary, many birds causes tremendous damage to mankind.
1) Common Myna –
1) Biological Name : Acridotheres tristis
2) Local Name : Salunki
3) Family : Sturnida
5) Size : Myna ± (22.5)
6) Habits and Habitats : Resident, A Confirmed associate of man.
Omnivorus.
2) Blue Rock Pigeon –
1) Biological Name : Columba livia
2) Local Name : Kabutar
3) Family : Pteroclididae
5) Size : House Crow About 13 Inches (30.5 CM)
6) Habits and Habitats : Resident. In its perfectly wild state affects open country with cliffs and rocky hills mostly seen in semi domesticated condition living as a commensal of man and largly adultreted through interbreeding with fancy artificial strains. Omnivorus.
3) House Crow –
1) Biological Name : Corvus splendens
2) Local Name : Kowwa, Kawala
3) Family : Artamidae
5) Size : ± (17 Inches) 41.5cm
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident, Perhaps the most familiar bird of Indian towns and villages. Lives in close association with man and obtains its livelihood from his works. Adicious cunning and uncannily wary. Omnivorus.
4) Grey Heron –
1) Biological Name : Ardea cinerea
2) Local Name : Grey Heron
3) Family : Ardeidae
5) Size : Open Billed Stock ±
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident, Somewhat crepuscular wades circumspectly into shallow water with neck craned and bill poised. Carnivorus.
5) Red Munia or Waxbill –
1) Biological Name : Estrilda amandava
2) Local Name : Lal munia
3) Family : Ploceidae
5) Size : Sparrow – Same as of the other munias.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident , Typical munia, with a preference for damp localities. Has feeble but musical chirruping call notes. Breeding males utter a low, continuous, twittering song. A popular cage bird, always to be seen in bird markets. Omnivorus.
6) Cattle Egret –
1) Biological Name : Bubulcus ibis
2) Local Name : Gai Bagla
3) Family : Ardeidae
5) Size : Little Egret
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident, Gregarious .Mostly seen with grazing cattle stalking energetically alongside the animals , Running in and out between their legs or riding upon their backs , and lunging out to seize insects distributed by their movements amongst the grass. Inscetivorus.
7) Openbilled Stork –
1) Biological Name : Anastomus oscitans
2) Local Name : Ghonghila
3) Family : Jacanidae
5) Size : White Stork About 2.5 Ft High.
6) Habits And Habitats : Migrant. One of our commonest storks with a wide and general distribution. General habits typical of the stork The precise significance and function of the curiously shaped bill is obscure and calls for special investigation. it may have to do with opening the thick shells of the large Ampullaria snails found on marshes , the soft body and viscera of which form a large proportion of its food in due season. Carnivorus.
8) Flamingo –
1) Biological Name : Phoenicopterus roseus
2) Local Name : Raj –Hans
3) Family : Ardeidae
5) Size : Domestic Goose, Standing About 4ft High.
6) Habits And Habitats : Migrant Affects jheels, lagoons salt pans, estuaries , etc. feeds in shallow water with the slender neck bent down between the legs and head completely submerged . The curious bill is inverted so that the ridge of the culmen scrapes the ground the upper mandible thus forms a hallow scoop into which the churned up liquid bottom mud is collected and strained by means of the lamellae and the fleshy tongue, sifting the minute food particles. Carnivorus.
9) White Backed Or Bengal Vulture –
1) Biological Name : Gyps bengalensis
2) Local Name : Gidh
3) Family : Accipitridae
5) Size : Peacock ± Minus Train.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident Our commonest vulture. A carrion-feeder and useful scavenger on yhe countryside and in the environs of towns and villages. Large gatherings collect at animal carcases with astonishing promptness and demolish them with incredible speed. The obsequies are attended by a great deal of harsh screeching and hissing as the birds strive to elbow themselves into advantageous position, or prance around with open wings, two birds tugging at a morsel from opposite ends. Carnivorus.
10) Grey- Partridge –
1) Biological Name : Francolinus pondiceriansus
2) Local Name : Teetar
3) Family : Phasianidae
5) Size : Half- Grown Domestic Hen 13 Inches.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident. Affects dry ,open grass and thorn-scrub country. Avoids heavy forest and humid tracts. Commonly found in the neighborhood of villages and cultivation. Coveys scratch the ground or cattle dung for food: grain, seeds, termites, beetle larvae, etc. Large terrestrial, but roosts in babul and similar trees. When flushed, rises with a loud whir of wings. Insectivorus.
11) Bronzewinged Jacana –
1) Biological Name : Metopidius indicus
2) Local Name : Pipi
3) Family : Jacanidae
5) Size : Partridge ±
6) Habits And Habitats : Migrant, Affects jheels and tanks abounding in floating vegetation such as waterlily and singara (Trapa). The elongated, widely spreading toes help to distribute the bird’s weight and enable it to trip along with ease over the floating tangles of leaves and stems. Becomes tame and fearless on village tanks if unmolested. Carnivorus.
12) Redwattled Lapwing –
1) Biological Name : Vanellus indicus
2) Local Name : Tituri
3) Family : Charadriidae
5) Size : Partridge
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident, Affects open country, ploughed fields , grazing lands. And margins and beds of tanks and puddles .Also met with in forest glades around rain –filled depressions. Runs about in short spurts and dips forward obliquely to pick up food in typical plover manner. Carnivorus.
13) Yellow-Wattled Lapwing –
1) Biological Name : Vanelllus malabaricus
2) Local Name : Chafan ,Zirdi,
3) Family : Charadriidae
5) Size : Partridge ± More Leggy .
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident, Inhabits dry open country and fallow land ,and is less dependent upon the neibourhood of water than 85 .Also less noisy and demonstrative, but otherwise similar to it in general habits and feeding Insectivorus.
14 ) Garganey –
1) Biological Name : Anas querquedula
2) Local Name : Chyta
3) Family : Anatidae
5) Size : Domestic duck -
6) Habits And Habitats : Migrant,one of the earliest migrant, swift flier and good sporting bird. Omnivorus.
15) Spotted Munia –
1) Biological Name : Lonchura punctulata
2) Local Name : Telia munia
3) Family : Ploceidae
5) Size : Sparrow.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident,Typical munia, Flocks, sometimes of up to 200 individuals or more, hop about gleaning grass seeds etc. the birds occasionally also devour winged termites emerging from the ground, and when disturbed fly up into trees and bushes, uttering feeble chirrups. They fly in the same disorderly closepacked undulating rabbles as other munias. Carnivorus.
16) Spotted Dove –
1) Biological Name : Streptopelia chinensis
2) Local Name : Parki
3) Family : Pteroclididae
5) Size : Between Myna And Pigeon.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident,Affects open well-wooded and cultivated country; avoids arid tracts.Becomes quite tame and confiding if unmolested, freely entering gardens and verendas of bungalows. Omnivorus.
17) Red Turtle Dove –
1) Biological Name : Streptopelia tranquebarica
2) Local Name : Girwi fakhta
3) Family : Pteroclididae
5) Size : Myna +.
6) Habits And Habitats : Migrant.The least common of the doves dealt with here .Affects open cultivated country , usually single or in pairs but sometimes large flocks in association with other doves .gleans grain and seeds on the ground. Omnivorus.
18) Little Brown Dove –
1) Biological Name : Strepopelia senegalensis
2) Local Name : Tortra fakhta
3) Family : Pteroclididae
5) Size : Myna +
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident. Affects dry stony scrub country with “cactus” breaks etc ,in the neibourhood of villages and cultivation ,often side by side with 111 Tame and confiding .Freely enters bungalows and nests on rafters and cornices. Omnivorus.
19) Roseringed Parakeet –
1) Biological Name : Psittacula krameri
2) Local Name : Tota
3) Family : Psittacidae
5) Size : Myna +: With A Long Pointed Tail.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident.One of the most familiar of Indian birds , as much at home on the countryside as within villages and towns. Often bands itself into large flocks and is highly destructive at all times to crops and orchard fruit, gnawing and wasting far more than it actually eats. Frugivorus.
20) Koel –
1) Biological Name : Eudynamys scolopacea
2) Local Name : Koel, Kokila
3) Family : Phasianidae
5) Size : House Crow; Slenderer, With
Longer Tail.
6) Habits And Habitats : Resident. Brood –parasitic. Arboreal. Frequent gardens, groves and open country abounding in large leafy trees. Silent in winter thus often overlooked and recorded as absent. Becomes increasingly noisy with the advance of the hot weather, and then one of the earliest bird voices at dawn. The call begins with a low kuoo, rises in scale with each successive kuoo until it reaches fever pitch at the seventh or eighth, and breaks off abruptly. Omnivorous.
