MU in top 5 bird-rich campuses in country

In the Campus Bird Count (CBC), Mangalore University is among the top five bird-rich campuses in the country.

The campus was second in the country in the total number of checklists uploaded, followed by Kerala Agricultural University.

The University topped the campuses in Karnataka in both species numbers and total checklists. This time, the event had over 50 participants.

This year, the CBC concluded with a record-breaking 110 bird species on Mangalore University campus. Some of the highlights are the Tickell's Leaf Warbler (probably the 2nd record for Coastal Karnataka), and winter migratory birds like Indian Pitta, Brown Shrike, Booted Eagle, Ashy Drongo, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Brown-breasted Flycatcher, Eurasian Blackbird, Gray wagtail and Blyth's Pipit and Srilankan Frogmouth.

The team was led by Vineeth Kumar K (research scholar), with Jagdish Paithankar (research scholar), Bhagya U J (MSc student) and Donald Preetam Henry (MSc student) of Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University.

The enthusiasts students and research scholars from various PG Departments Applied Zoology, Applied Botany, Biosciences, Chemistry, Commerce, Geoinformatics, Material science, Physics and Yogic Science along with some staff of P A College of Engineering, Ambika Vidyalaya and Govinda Dasa College, students and research scholars from other institutions and some independent birdwatchers from Mangaluru had taken part.

The success of the event is mainly due to involvement of enthusiastic participants and also covering of more unexplored areas of the campus in this year's survey.

The CBC is a sub-event of the larger 'Great Backyard Bird Count' (GBBC), organised by the annual Bird Count India. This is a collaborative effort to document the bird-life in campuses across India, with information about the diversity, distribution and frequency of bird species outside the protected areas.