Silence draws out birds & wild animals in Pune rural areas

PUNE: The unusual quiet in the wake of the lockdown has brought back many winged creatures to the rural parts of Pune, a joint study by state forest department and Pune-based Ela Foundation said.
“After lockdown, the urban areas usually occupied by pigeons, crows, kites and mynas witnessed new visitors. Interesting instances of parakeets entering homes, hornbills coming near windows, great tits, coucals and koels visiting terrace gardens, paradise flycatchers and fantails dancing in empty gardens, babblers making commotions, tailor birds, sunbirds, prinias, mynas, starlings, black drongos and bee-eaters coming close and owls perching on roof tops at night are being witnessed and reported,” Satish Pande, ornithologist and founder of Ela Foundation, said.
To study if a similar effect is witnessed in the rural regions adjacent to the city, a scientific study was launched in Purandar taluka, around Ela Habitat in Pingori village, near Jejuri.“We used camera traps and deployed them at waterholes. The trap cameras take photographs after a movement occurs in the field of view. The pictures are taken automatically by day and night (using IR light). Once deployed it takes up to seventy thousand photos,” Pande said.
Ela Foundation and the forest department are studying animal behaviour for the past five years using trap cameras deployed at several localities in Purandar taluka.
“For the lockdown study, we selected waterholes near human habitation for the present study from where we also had observations from past five years. One of the waterholes is artificially made by us at Ela Habitat in our premises. These sites were studied to find the effect on mammals and other wildlife after human absence due to the lockdown,” he said.
In the previous studies the observers had commonly seen mainly birds like house sparrow, coucal, babblers, an occasional peafowl, chinkara and mongoose visiting the waterholes.
“When trap camera data was obtained after the first two weeks of lockdown, we were amazed. We had increased populations of all previous birds and additional species like rufous tree-pie, grey francolin, quails, buntings, pipits, flycatchers and also hawks and eagles at the waterholes. The mammals included mongoose, Asian palm civet, small Indian civet, Indian gazelle (chinkara), barking deer, four-horned antelope, black-naped hare, Indian fox, jungle cat, golden jackal, hyena, wolf, wild boar, porcupine and leopard. The visitors often came with their families,” Pande said.
Among reptiles there were snakes, chameleons, lizards and monitor lizard visiting the waterhole. “These waterholes which are close to human habitation and a reliable source of water are otherwise avoided by wild animals. They are now increasingly visited by wildlife. These very animals were otherwise forced to search for distant water bodies in the hot summer,” he added.
However, on the flip side, researchers have also found nooses, traps and snares to catch peafowl, hare and wild boar. They are promptly destroyed and reported to forest department, Pande said.