An appraisal of avian species diversity in and around Purulia Town, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Purulia, the westernmost district of West Bengal, India is least explored with respect to the biological diversity and relatively little information is available to date. The present study was conducted from February 2017 to January 2018 to document avifaunal diversity in Purulia Town and surroundings. Sampling was done through the line transect method with photographic documentation and subsequent identification following suitable keys. Species richness and seasonal abundance were calculated. Altogether, 115 species of birds belonging to 19 orders and 43 families were recorded during the study period. Passeriformes was the most dominant order represented by 46 species during the study. The Shannon-Wiener (H’) value was highest for January (1.564). A large number of migratory birds visit Purulia every year mostly during winter and it is reflected in the present study. Diverse foraging habit among the birds was observed during the study period and omnivorous birds (29%) were found in highest number followed by invertivores (26%), carnivores (25%), granivores (8%), herbivores (7%), frugivores (3%), and nectarivores (2%). The present study is a preliminary effort to document the avifaunal diversity of Purulia and a more extensive systematic study should be carried out to investigate and protect the avifaunal diversity of this region.

A study of avian diversity in Durgapur Government College Campus, West Bengal, India

“…Similar patterns were also observed for Margalef's richness index where the highest scores were observed during the months of November and December (7.822 and 7.691 respectively). These findings agree well with the previous studies made by other researchers [32,33].…”

“…Of the remaining 40 families, 8 were represented by 3 bird species, 13 were represented by 2 bird species and the rest 19 families were represented by a single bird species. A similar kind of finding was made by Mahato et al [32] in and around Purulia town, West Bengal. Out of the total 106 bird species, 23 were winter visitors, 4 were summer visitors, 1 was passage migrant, 1 was vagrant and the rest 77 birds were residents (Figure 2).…”

Diversity and seasonal occurrence of odonates in the dry deciduous ecoregion of Purulia, West Bengal, India

“…The biodiversity of the Purulia district is insufficiently explored to date (Samanta et al 2017;Das 2018;Mahato et al 2021), with no recent published reports about odonate diversity. The present study aims to prepare a checklist of odonates from the Purulia region and to assess their diversity and seasonal occurrence.…”

Diversity of wintering avifauna throughout the heterogeneous aquatic habitats of Bankura District, West Bengal, India

“…, Santragachi lake in Howrah District, West Bengal (22 species)(Roy et al 2011), Bakreswar and Hinglo reservoirs and Adra Saheb bandh lake (24 species)(Khan et al 2016), but lower than the Kolkata surroundings (48 species)(Sengupta et al 2013), Purulia town and its outskirts (115 species)(Mahato et al 2021), agricultural landscape in Burdwan(Hossain & Aditya 2014). The Shannon index (2.28) in Sal Bandh (Site 6), which was the highest during the current survey, was lower than the Mukkali moist deciduous forest (3.45) and Purulia town and its outskirts (3.66)(Jayson & Mathew 2000;Mahato et al 2021). In 2018 it was reported that the species richness of Mukutmanipur dam (81 species)(Singh et al 2018) was much higher than the richness value in this dam during the present survey (36 species).…”