Birds sing louder amidst the noise and structures of the urban jungle

Sparrows, blackbirds and the great tit are all birds known to sing at a higher pitch (frequency) in urban environments. It was previously believed that these birds sang at higher frequencies in order to escape the lower frequencies noises of the urban environment. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Aberystwyth have discovered that besides noise, the physical structure of cities also plays a role in altering the birds’ songs.

Urban birds sing differently and at a higher frequency than woodland birds in an effort to penetrate the wall of constant noise produced by traffic, machines and human activity. However, architecture also has a profound affect on their songs. The study findings have recently been published in the esteemed scientific journal PLoS One.

A new explanation

“Urban architecture is a crucial determinant of how urban birds sing”. Noise amidst the urban landscape is typically composed of lower frequencies. Thus, one might jump to the conclusion that it would be smart for birds to distinguish their song by singing louder in order to drown out the competing noise. However, the recent study demonstrates that the noise explanation is incomplete, according to Professor Torben Dabelsteen of the Section for Ecology and Evolution at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology, one of the authors of the study.

The city’s role in the song

Some researchers have never really bought into the idea that urban noise alone caused birds in the city to sing at higher frequencies. Either directly, because birds tried to sing at a higher tone and away from noise or indirectly, by the birds singing louder to drown out anthropogenic noise.

“Now, with the help of controlled sound recordings, we have shown that the higher frequencies in urban birds’ songs are also transmitted across cities when there isn’t any noise from traffic. This shows that the physical structure of cities must play a considerable role in the heightened frequencies,” explains Torben Dabelsteen.

Structures and variations in the cityscape – houses, streets, open spaces and alleys – all serve to reflect and distort noise in differing ways, things that birds must take into account. Birds in the urban environment can easily spot one another, but must do what they can to reduce echoes from buildings and narrow streets in order to penetrate and communicate effectively.

High-pitched urban birds

Birds living beyond the urban landscape need not tweet away with full force. While the woodland’s trees and abundant foliage also distort sound through reflection, they also serve to obstruct clear lines of sight. Therefore, rural birds may utilize these distortions to help judge distances and locate one another.

“City-dwellers can look forward to the lively song of birds in the coming spring, and even though a side effect of the urban birds’ more powerful song is that they sing at a higher pitch, this is something that we are not typically able to hear,” explains Dabelsteen.

Provided by University of Copenhagen

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-birds-louder-noise-urban-jungle.html

Bangladesh Establishes New Sanctuaries to Protect Endangered River Dolphins

Freshwater, or river, dolphins are by their very nature a rarity in the world. Only four species are known, with two in Asia and two in South America—one of the Asian species, the Baiji of the Yangtze river, has been declared functionally extinct. Now, the South Asian river dolphin is receiving some desperately needed attention in the form of new sanctuaries.

 

Bangladesh has announced a plan to open three new sanctuaries in the Sundarbans—the world’s largest mangrove forest—to protect both subspecies of the South Asian river dolphin.

“Declaration of these Wildlife Sanctuaries is an essential first step in protecting Ganges River and Irrawaddy dolphins in Bangladesh,” Brian D. Smith, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asian Freshwater and Coastal Cetacean Program, explained, “as biological indicators of ecosystem-level impacts, freshwater dolphins can inform adaptive human-wildlife management to cope with climate change suggesting a broader potential for conservation and sustainable development.”

Currently, the dolphins face threats from dam projects, by-catch, pollution, prey loss due to overfishing, changes in salinity levels, and hunting—many of the same pressures that drove the Baiji to extinction.

The sanctuaries will also protect a range of other endangered species the make their homes in the Sundarbans.

Pulicat lake pulsating with winged visitors

As the silver moon slowly fades and the huge crimson sun rises over the horizon in the Pulicat Lake, storks, both painted and open billed, surf the sky in flying formations. With spring in the air, the storks search for food along the vast expanse of the lake. In silhouette, three fishermen walk away from the placid yet radiant waters, carrying the catch for the day.

Swallows dart around and there are a few resplendent bee-eaters here and there. A lonely parrot preens itself and in a still pond, a few large egrets fish and cause ripples. At the end of the road to Sriharikota, thousands of migratory ducks occupy the mud-brown lake. A pod of pelicans, the big birds of the lake, cruise along effortlessly as painted storks poke around the pristine waters in search of their breakfast.

A kingfisher, a beauty to behold, sits on a lone pole craning its neck left and right. Further down the road, the blackish coots with pink-red little ones wade through the reefs. In Pulicat, life is as normal and natural as it can be. The flamingos, the flagship species of the lake, were seen deep in the waters over the past two months, much to the disappointment of bird photographers, and not in great numbers as it used to be, says K. Thirunaranan of Nature Trust. The highlights this year was the spotting of Red Crested Pochards and Bar Headed Geese, he adds.

Some 20 km north, open billed storks, white ibis and pelicans, all parent birds, circle the late morning sky with their newborn ones in the nests on Barringtonia trees in the centre of the lake waiting to be fed in the Nelapattu Bird Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh. Cormorants criss-cross the lake often. Amidst a pile of dry sticks, the new-borns laze around and play with one other as they wait for food. A few small monkeys scurry on, to the dismay of the little birds, picking up the spilled fruits.

Hussain, a guide with the Andhra Pradesh tourism, presents binoculars to visiting school children, who take wings to watch the birds up close and vivid. Many open billed storks, still busy with building nests, thoughtfully pick and choose the branch they want.

A few pond herons jump into catch a fish and, once back in the branch, begin to munch. Now and then, a parent pelican swims across the greenish lake to quench its thirst. Soon, the birds circling above descend to their respective nests. The young pelicans are seen sticking their bills into their parents’ throat. “Each parent bird has a throat pouch which can store 2.5 kg of fish,” says Hussain. On Monday, foresters at the sanctuary had a rough count of the birds.

“There are 1,611 pelicans with 1,558 chicks; 1,327 open billed storks with 1,316 chicks; 1,318 white ibises with 332 young ones and 1,313 cormorants with 384 new-borns,” said N. Balaji, range officer, Nelapattu Bird Sanctuary. “The young ones will learn to swim and fly in March and the winged wonders will take off from the sanctuary one species after another, heralding the end of nesting season, with the pelicans leaving last in April,” says Hussain.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2894633.ece

Harsh winter mars migratory birds’ visit to Kashmir wetlands Harsh winter mars migratory birds’ visit to Kashmir wetlands

A suitable climate and the easy availability of food make the Hokersar wetland reserve in Indian-administered Kashmir a favourite destination for nearly a million migratory birds every winter.  This year, however, heavy snowfall and below freezing temperatures have frozen the water in some parts of the reserve, making it difficult for the birds to feed.

 

BBC Video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16881107

Winged guests by-passing the Yamuna

With just six species of water birds being spotted on the Wazirabad Barrage-Nizamuddin Bridge stretch of the Yamuna in Delhi this year, the Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) 2012 has raised serious concerns about the degradation of natural habitat for the birds due to a variety of reasons.

AWC’s Delhi State Coordinator T. K. Roy, who led a team of volunteers to conduct the census from January 14 to 29 with the help of forest staff of Okhla Bird Sanctuary, says some of the findings are very disturbing.

For one, the arrival of water birds along the Wazirabad Barrage-Nizamuddin Bridge stretch of the Yamuna has diminished sharply over the past five years. While in 2008, as many as 20 species of migratory birds were spotted along this stretch, the number has dropped to just six this year.

Even among these six species, only a pair each of common sandpiper, red wattled lapwing and grey wagtail were spotted. “Due to various levels of threats in the river, the bird habitat in Delhi, the resident bird species have almost disappeared and regular migratory water bird species too have abandoned the river habitat,” says Mr. Roy.

He says this year hardly any winter migratory species has been spotted except small flocks of black-headed gulls, brown-headed gulls and black-winged stilts.

These birds too were seen more towards the beginning of winter when they came in search of food.

But later, they sheltered in the much upper stretch of Yamuna near Hindon and in the smaller floodplain wetlands adjacent to the Yamuna due to habitat shrinkage and shortage of food, primarily fish, he adds.

Part of the largest and longest running internationally coordinated faunal monitoring programme in the world for many years now, Mr. Roy says the census has also narrowed down on the reasons for the decline in the arrival of water birds.

Reasons

The main reason for their staying away from the Wazirabad Barrage-Nizamuddin Bridge stretch of the Yamuna has been fishing, cutting and clearance of vegetation, vegetable cultivation and human disturbance, presence of open crematorium, dumping of non-biodegradable waste, concrete urban developments on riverbed and water pollution caused by flow of sewage and industrial effluents.

As for the Okhla Bird Sanctuary, Mr. Roy says this year 13 species of major migratory water birds (ducks, geese, coots), 11 species of waders, four species of gulls, three species of storks, three species of ibises, three of wagtails and 25 of resident water birds have been recorded.

Plastic threat to a winter flight from Himalayas

A tourist to the hill station on Monday had a tough time, struggling to free herself from a plastic rope that her legs got entangled in.

She—bird lovers identified her to be a Blue Rock Thrush as per Salim Ali’s Book of Indian Birds —was on her routine winter jaunt to this part of the world from her home in the frozen Himalayan foothills.

The bird landed on the property belonging to Geetha Srinivasan, convenor of the Nilgiris chapter of Indian National Trust for Art, Culture and Heritage (INTACH), off Udhagamandalam-Kotagiri Road and abutting the Kodappamund Channel. Ms. Srinivasan’s property is a haven for birds for its rich green foliage and flowering shrubs.

The bird was found in a bush inside the property, its feet heavily entangled in a plastic rope that snapped the bird’s flight over the hills.

Those at the property responded quick, picked up the bird, and snipped the strings with a scissor to set the bird free. It was then Ms. Srinivasan identified the visitor to her property to be a Blue Rock Thrush from the migratory cult.

 

According to Salim Ali’s book, the bird leaves the Himalayan foothills in winter and drops by the Subcontinent, including Sri Lanka and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Satisfaction writ large on her face for being able to host the rare visitor and for freeing it from its ordeal, Ms. Srinivasan said the incident stressed the need to step up the war against plastic.

Acknowledging the efforts taken by the district administration and various NGOs to make the Nilgiris a plastic-free district, she said a lot more still needed to be done.

Though the public and the traders here were, to a large extent, sensitised to the after-effects of plastic, very few are aware of the damage plastic did to bio-diversity, she said.

In a place known both as a vacation spot and a natural heritage hotspot, tourists, both humans from the plains and migratory birds, have to be cared for.

New grasslands to boost Bihar tigers

Bihar is planning to create more grasslands in its only tiger reserve to help support more prey animals for the big cats that currently number 11.

At present, just five percent of the 880-sq km Valmiki Tiger Reserve is under grasslands. The park management hopes more grassland will support more prey animals that will in turn support more tigers.

Limited grassland species in the park like ungulates, which are an important food source for tigers, have forced the management to do a rethink.

“This was one of the reasons why the park has a low density of tigers. My first priority after I joined the reserve last July was to create more grasslands,” field director Santosh Tiwari told reporters.

Scattered population of sambar, nilgai, gaur, chittal, hog deer, langur and rhesus macaque, among others, as well as a few rhinoceros are also found in the reserve.

The Madanpur forest range is home to many herbivores because the rich alluvial soil enriched by the river Gandak has favoured the growth of grasses, Tiwari said.

Common grass in the reserve include imperata cylindrica, saccharum spontaneum and saccharum munja.

The forest department, in collaboration with the NGOs Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), is currently conducting a study to boost grasslands in the reserve.

Valmiki had more grasslands in the past. But they gradually turned into woodland due to lack of management. People also turned them into agricultural lands, said WTI manager Samir Kumar Sinha.

The forest was under the management of the Bihar State Forest Development Corporation before it became a tiger reserve in 1994.

Since it was a profit-making organisation, it introduced commercially important trees like teak, shisham and bamboo which turned the grassland and open areas into woodland, said Sinha.

Mixed forest vegetation is crucial for the herbivores as they are important sources of food. The availability of quality food boosts their breeding chances.

“The grass has became unpalatable for the herbivores due to ineffective management,” Sinha told IANS.

Loss of grasslands led to a decrease in herbivore numbers, which reduced the tigers’ food source.

The most robust statistical method for prey density estimation is Distance Sampling. But this technique requires at least 40 sightings of animals in an area. Valmiki has such a low herbivore base that this method was not possible, Sinha said.

Grassland and open areas were also invaded by unwanted species like mikenia, eupatorium and phoenix.

Recently, experts from the forest department, the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, WTI and NABU held a discussion on better management of grasslands.

They suggested experimenting with different methods before a suitable one could be implemented. They also recommended documenting the types of grasses in the park to understand their biology.

“We have already identified the sites to conduct the trial. We will introduce grasses that are locally available instead of bringing them from outside,” Tiwari said.

Some 150 villages dot the periphery of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve. In addition, 25 revenue villages are in the Done Valley, a 45-sq km area in the heart of the reserve. Some 18,000 people live there.

Apart from human disturbances, poaching continues to be the biggest threat to the park.

The latest tiger census report released by the government in March last year estimated about 1,700 tigers. In 2008, it had put the numbers at about 1,400.

 

Source: IANS

Bird watching at Ramachandra lake, Sulur

It was another of the road less traveled journeys to rustic villages to experience the beauty of birds in wetlands and scrubs. We went along and walked up into this small unknown place, filled by paddy and corn fields where birds lived free, away from the fear of humans.

We walked quietly watching the various migratory birds. The first one that caught our sight was the Rosy starling, flocked and huddled together on a wire.

Picture: Booted warbler

Picture: Pied crested cuckoo

Yellow wagtail

Spotted munia

Here are the list of birds we saw.

1. Parakeet
2. Rosy starling
3. Common coot
4. Small blue kingfisher
5. White throated kingfisher
6. Turtle dove
7. Peacock
8. Small egret
9. Large egret
10. Pied wagtail
11. Yellow wagtail
12. Booted warbler
13. Common sandpiper
14. Painted stork
15. Grey Heron
16. Purple heron
17. White breasted waterhen
18. Black kite
19. Pond heron
20. Spotted munia
21. Purple sunbird (male)
22. Purple sunbird (female)
23. Black Drongo
24. Indian treepie
25. Pied crested cuckoo
26. Baybacked shrike
27. Darter
28. Greater Coucal
29. White headed babbler
30. Blue tailed bee eater
31. Green bee eater
32. Common swallow
33. Spot billed duck
34. Black winged stilt
35. Common ringed plover
36. Red wattled lapwing
37. Common sparrow
38. Intermediate egret

Common Sandpiper

Picture: Black Drongo amidst yellow fields

Picture: Darters

Rosy Starling

This was done as a part of census by BNHS on Asiatic water birds.

Text and Pictures: Sharada Balasubramanian

Sumatran elephant now critically endangered

The Sumatran elephant could be extinct in the wild in under 30 years unless immediate steps are taken to protect its rapidly diminishing habitat, environmental group WWF said on Tuesday. 

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, raised its listing of the Sumatran elephant subspecies from “endangered” to “critically endangered” after nearly 70 percent of its habitat and halve its population has been lost in one generation. 

The main culprit is deforestation of habitat or its conversion to use for agriculture, a practice that has also raised the spectre of extinction for the Sumatran tiger and the Javan rhino. 

 

 

“The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger,” said Carlos Drews, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme, in a statement. 

“Unless urgent and effective conservation action is taken these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime.” 

There are only an estimated 2,400 to 2,800 elephants of the Sumatran subspecies alive in the wild, down about 50 percent from a 1985 estimate. Scientists say that if current trends continue, the animals could be extinct in the wild in less than 30 years, WWF said. 

The organisation called on the Indonesian government to prohibit all forest conversion in elephant habitats until a conservation strategy is devised. 

Although Sumatran elephants are protected under Indonesian law, a vast majority of their habitats are outside protected areas and could be converted to agricultural use, IUCN was quoted as saying. 

The situation is particularly critical in central Sumatra’s Riau Province, where rapid deforestation has cut elephant numbers by 80 percent in less than 25 years, WWF added. 

“Riau Province has already lost six of its nine herds to extinction,” said Anwar Puroto of WWF-Indonesia. 

“Forest concession holders such as pulp and paper companies and the palm oil industry have a legal and ethical obligation to protect endangered species within their concessions.” 

Last May, a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear primary forests came into effect in Indonesia, part of a $1 billion deal with Norway that could spur projects to cut emissions and slow expansion of plantations. But the long-delayed moratorium was breached on its first day, an environmental group said. 

In the last 70 years, Indonesia has lost both the Bali tiger and the Java tiger.

Why should elephants be held captive in the name of religion?

As a kid, I remember seeing the mighty majestic animal, the elephant in the temples of Kerala. I thrust a one rupee coin in its tusk and waited with bated breath until it blessed me by placing its tusk on my head. I was thrilled. I loved the animal so much. As I was growing up, I visited many temples in Kerala. I have seen many elephants, decorated beautifully. Couple of years back at my grandfather’s village, I saw half a dozen elephants lined up. There were sounds of drum, a usual scene in kerala temples. The festivities were happening in full swing. And no festival in Kerala is complete without elephants and drum sounds.

As my interest in wildlife grew, I witnessed this lovely animal in many wildlife sanctuaries. There was a stark difference of course. There was silence all around me. The animals were quietly fanning themselves, and walking in groups, drinking water, splashing mud over their bodies. I realised I enjoyed this sight more than watching them in temples.

The feeling of watching an elephant in the wild is inexpressible.

Until, yesterday I did not know that elephants suffer when they are kept captive.  I had an opportunity to hear the talks of Dr. Shiela Rao from CUPA at the 2nd Annual animal welfare and conservation symposium held in coimbatore. CUPA works on saving the captive elephants. I heard some appalling facts. Captive elephants in temples are not treated well. Though Kerala might seem like an animal loving state, where is the love when animals are treated badly in temples. That’s one. In states across India, this animal in captivity is taken around on the road in hot sun without water. How cruel is that? Next time when you are in Kerala and you see an elephant, please look at the chains and how they are tied. I am sure, you have little bit of empathy towards living beings, you would have tears in your eyes.

We talk about human rights and animal rights. Do we really care about this animal whom we worship as Lord Ganesha. In the name of religion, we are committing atrocities towards these animals.

Fact 1: Elephants love silence. They do. They hate sounds. Can you imagine how they survive in temples? You never know when they might get agitated. Elephants are one among the unpredictable animals. As noise haters, they could get aggravated at any point. There have been many cases of mahout deaths.

Once, a mahout repeatedly was beating the elephant to make him do a task. After umpteen times, the elephant reacted. Pulled the mahout’s legs and flung it. That was it. Is it not fair that these animals are left in their own space or freedom than keeping them in temples and ill treating them.

Fact 2: You see elephants shaking their head. It is not fun. When it becomes stereotypical, it is a sign of stress for animals. This is not particular to elephants, but to any animal. Animals do go through psychological depressions and these are signs.

Fact 3: Elephants do not breed in captivity. No they absolutely do not. Given such horrendous conditions, can they?

Fact 4: Elephants cannot bear heat. If you walk down to forests in summer afternoons, you will find them probably under a thick tree fanning themselves. There are no sweat glands present in the animal, hence they cannot withstand heat. You will never find them in the sun, but imagine in the roads of Rajasthan, these animals are made to walk for miles in the sun without water? Think about it!

A baby elephant was once reaching the gate of Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and natural history. The mother elephant was pushing the baby elephant to walk further to drink water. The baby walked and suddenly collapsed and died, right near the water tank kept for these animals to drink water. On post portem it was found that, the baby had human parasites in its body-the clear reason for its death. We keep dirtying places, throwing trash and when these animals feed on them, this is what happens?

For a change, how about humans being put in a cage, and these elephants chaining them without food or water? Will they survive? No. We consider ourselves superior. But think about it, animals and insects have been living in this planet for crores of years and humans..approximately 5 lakh years and we dominate them?  Like Salim Ali said, the day when the birds are gone, there will be no humans left to survive and even if humans are trashed out of this planet, birds and animals and worms will still exist.

Next time, I don’t even think I would want to see an elephant in a temple. I would shudder to watch my animal being tormented. In the name of religion, we are torturing animals when even our great scriptures like Mahabharata tells us to protect nature.

People, wake up!