Ernakulam soars in waterbird count

Survey volunteers say the number of birds reported in the district’s wetlands has increased from last year. In fact, the numbers have stayed more or less stable over the past five years.

The wetlands of Ernakulam district are offering a conducive environment for wetland birds thereby supporting their population. The volunteers who ventured into the wetland habitats of the district last week looking for wetland-dependent birds found to their delight that the number of individual birds sighted had increased when compared to last year.

What brought them relief was the finding that the number of bird species spotted during the survey remained stable over the last five years. The birders of Kochi spotted 111 species during the survey. The numbers remain more or less stable over the last five years, says K. Vishnupriyan Kartha, secretary of the Cochin Natural History Society, which leads the survey conducted as part of the Asian Waterbird Census-2023.  The number of species recorded last year was 109. It was 108 in 2021. This year, the volunteers counted 7,653 individual birds, which showed a significant increase when compared to the 4,391 of 2022 and 4,939 of 2021.

The Varapuzha unit of the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad partnered with the society in the event, which saw around 50 volunteers walk across the habitats looking for birds and making entries in the log books during the morning hours of the day. Lesser whistling duck was found to be the most reported species in the last five years. This year, the number of Glossy ibis spotted has increased. Temminck’s stint, Long-toed stint, Little stint, Booted warbler, Sykes warbler and Marsh sandpiper are some of the important species sighted during the exercise, explains Mr. Kartha. 

The survey, like the birds, too has spread its wings over the past 13 years. When it started in 2010, only two sites, the Dewaswompadam and Kadamakkudy wetlands, were covered. This year, over 10 sites including Kadamakkudy, Devaswompadam, Puthuvype, Nedumbassery, Tripunithura, Edavanakkad, Thamaravattom and Veliyathunadu were covered, he explains. 

The rosy picture of the increasing number of birds counted and the stability in terms of the species present in the district comes at a time when a similar event conducted in the nearby districts brought gloom to the birders. Conservationists are looking into the reasons for the dip in both the number of birds sighted as well as the species in the neighbouring districts. The data generated during the survey will be submitted to the Bombay Natural History Society and Wetlands International, the agencies that coordinate the Wetland Bird Census at the national and global levels.