Diversity of avian fauna in Nowshera Tehsil of District Rajouri, J&K, India

Abstract

Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is situated at the intersection of two bio- geographic regions of the world, namely the Palearctic and the Oriental regions. Besides harboring some species that are shared with the tropical and subtropical parts of the Indian subcontinent, it is home to some faunal elements, particularly among birds and mammals that are unique to higher altitudes. During the study we found 31 species in the study area which belonged to 10 orders and 20 families. Among the orders, Passeriformes was the one that contained 54 % of the species. That shows Passeriformes order is the most common order of the birds in the study area. Among the 20 families of species that were found in the study area, Muscicapidae family contained maximum number of species.As far as distribution status is concerned we found, residents, passage migrants and winter visitors in the study area. Majority of the birds belonged to resident category.  97% of the birds were found to belong to the Least Concern (LC) category of IUCN status. The only species that was found to be vulnerable in the study area was the Columba eversmanni(Yellow-eyed pigeon). Among all the 31 species that were found in the study area, 24 (77%) were found rarely, 10% were common, 6% occasional, 6% were uncommon in the area. Among the common species are the common Myna, Sparrow and Rufous-naped tit.