Avifauna Diversity in and Around Kaiga in Uttara Kannada Distriet of Karnataka State

Abstract

The natural forests of Uttara Kannada district range from evergreen through dry deciduous types. The characteristic species of such forests are Tectona grandis, Xylia xylocarpa, Terminalia panniculata and Meliosma tomentosa. The diversity of avifauna was critically studied within an area of 30 km radius of Kaiga in Uttara Kannada during summer season A total of 55 varieties of birds were encountered in 14 locations during the survey, of which 7.27% were inhabitants of aquatic ecosystems. While most of the types of birds were arboreal in habit, cattle egret was recorded as most dominant species (28.75 %), followed by house crow ( 12 55 %), little egret (9.42 %) and jungle crow (8.71 %) In terms of species richness, Kaiga was very rich with 19 species of birds followed by Chendiya and Yellapur with 17 species each. Majority of the birds were omnivorous in habit preferring insects, worms and arachnids as their principal food (36.52 %) items followed by frugivorous and granivorous birds comprising 12.1 and 11.8 % respectively. Shannon-Weiner diversity index and evenness index values for the encountered birds were estimated to be 3.90 and 0.67 respectively, indicating better environment and rich diversity of the avifauna.

Keywords

• Avifauna
• diversity
• Kaiga