MIGRATORY BIRDS OF INDIA

Bird migration is a special type of behavioural adaptation found in some special groups of birds – migratory birds.

- Asif Raja Khan

They move from one place to another in search of better resource availability and better breeding ground on seasonal basis. They face different types of challenges during their journey; several natural calamities, predation, and habitat destruction cause high cost in mortality. According to Sekercioglu (2007) and Rolland J. et al (2014), among world’s 10000 bird species, 1800 are migratory in nature.

In the Indian subcontinent, more than 220 types of migratory birds can be found every year, most of them choose the Indian subcontinent as their wintering ground, though some of them are monsoon and summer visitors. They come here from different corners of the world – some of them come from Arctic tundra region; some of them come from Europe, Northern Asia, and even from Iceland. But not all migratory birds do long-distance migrations, some bird species are short-distance migrant in nature; they travel only some hundreds of mile in search of better food resources. In the Indian subcontinent, some short-distance migrants of Himalaya change their altitude only, in response to the weather condition – this is called altitudinal migration.

WHY THEY CHOOSE INDIA?