Most abundant winter migrant to India
This article, in The Hindu, titled “Migratory birds declining, government monitoring habitat“, describes Environment and Forests Minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s reply to a query in the Lok Sabha.
There are various interesting tidbits in the article, including this statement, presumably taken from the ZSI Handbook that is mentioned in the previous paragraph in the article:
“The most abundant winter migrants to the Indian subcontinent are ducks and geese. Both constitute about 85 per cent of the population.”
What do you think? Which species is likely (in your estimation) to be the most abundant winter visitor to India? Do write your answers in the comments section below.
Dipak says:
November 30th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
As a group Ducks and Geese may be most abundant but surely not comprise 85%. In my opinion (just a rough guess)they will be around 50%. Other abundant group would be waders.
Not been able to think of any single species for abundance but I feel in terms of number it should be costal wader and not duck.
Suhel Quader says:
December 3rd, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I guess that when the article says “The most abundant winter migrants to the Indian subcontinent are ducks and geese. Both constitute about 85 per cent of the population.”, it probably means “of the population of wetland birds”, rather than of all migrants.
If we were talking about all migrants, surely something like the Blyth’s Reed Warbler or the Greenish Warbler is more abundant than any species of wetland bird? But this is just a guess.
And even among the wetland birds, I agree with you, Dipak, that waders would probably form a large proportion of the total.
I don’t have the ZSI handbook with me, though, so don’t know what their numbers are based on. Does anyone else know?
M.K.Bhaskar says:
December 19th, 2011 at 2:27 am
Read the welcome news that the bar headed geese have started arriving in good numbers in the Magadi Lake in Gadag, Karnataka, India. Now my request and prayer is that these birds be left alone and the District forest office do everything in its capacity to protect the Lake and its surroundings!!