<b>An annotated checklist of the birds of upper Chenab catchment, Jammu & Kashmir, India</b>

Abstract

Watershed avifaunal inventories are useful in devising management strategies appropriate to the habitat, as well as species conservation. The Chenab River basin forms one of the largest and most important river basins in Jammu &amp; Kashmir. The upper Chenab catchment offers a rich and diverse fauna, especially birds, owing to variety of habitats, different climatic regimes, and a wide range of altitude,. We present an avifaunal list of four watersheds—Bhot, Marusudar, Kalnai and Neeru of the Chenab River basin including Kishtwar Town and the surrounding area of the upper Chenab catchment over an elevation range of 820–4,500 m. The list includes 251 species belonging to 60 families and 150 genera of which six are globally threatened, 127 residents, 124 migrants and three new to the state. The paper also describes species-wise habitat occupancy, feeding behaviour, migratory status and abundance of the avifauna. The study reveals that mosaic habitats comprising forests, riverbeds, rangelands and rocky outcrops are crucial for the conservation of birds in the region.

Phylogeography and demographic history of the black kite Milvus migrans, a widespread raptor in Eurasia, Australia and Africa

“…In the west, the range of the sedentary govinda probably reaches the migratory migrans / lineatus IZ, with an IZ for all three subspecies thought to embrace the mountainous areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northernmost India (Ferguson‐Lees and Christie 2001, Karyakin 2017, Sharma et al 2018). It is quite probable that this zone spreads even further eastward along the Himalayas; however, the data from this region are scarce and even photographs are absent (GBIF dataset).…”

Breeding site records of three sympatric vultures in a mountainous cliff in Kahara-Thathri, Jammu & Kashmir, India

“…Of the nine vulture species occurring in India (Naoroji 2006;Praveen et al 2016), six have been reported from the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir (eBird 2020) and five from the upper Chenab catchment (Sharma et al 2018) Occurring at 600-2,500 m, they have been seen foraging up to 4,500m and even beyond (Ali & Ripley 1968;Grimmet et al 2011) The Egyptian Vulture, listed 'Endangered' (Birdlife International 2019), is widely distributed from northern Africa and southwestern Europe to southern Asia (Birdlife International 2020). Comparatively smaller than other vultures and an opportunist feeder (feeding on a vast range of food), it is the only living member of the genus Neophron.…”

On the high bird diversity in the non-protected regions of Trashiyangtse District in Bhutan

“…Birds are also sources of food and, spiritual inspiration, in addition to being important components of tourism industries (Kiros et al 2018). Therefore, baseline information on birds of a particular locality, such as a species checklist, is vital for ecological monitoring, environmental assessments, conservation planning (Kandel et al 2018;Sharma et al 2018), and exploring eco-tourism potentials.…”

“…They were further categorized according to their residency pattern as residents, altitudinal migrants, summer visitors, winter visitors, and passage migrants, following Ali et al (1996), Feijen &Feijen (2008), andGrimmett et al (2019). Moreover, feeding guilds were assigned according to field observations (Kumar & Sharma 2018;Sharma et al 2018;Singh et al 2020), such that birds feeding on grains were categorized as granivorous, fruits as frugivorous, nectars as nectivorous, insects as insectivorous, vertebrates (amphibians, snakes, lizards, small mammals, small birds, and fishes) and invertebrates (crustaceans and Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 August 2021 | 13(9): 19274-19292 19277 J TT micro invertebrates) as carnivorous, and both plants and animals as omnivorous. Furthermore, birds were categorized as common, frequent, occasional and rare based on abundance and frequency of sightings during field investigation following Ali et al (1996), Feijen &Feijen (2008), andGrimmett et al (2019).…”