Biodiversity of Avian Fauna of Vansda National Park, Gujarat: Conservation Issues

The Vansda National Park is situated in Navsari in South Gujarat. It has a unique identity because the Park falls on the northern-most limit of the Western Ghats, and is famous for the biodiversity of flora and fauna, especially for birds, such as Indian great black woodpecker, heart-spotted woodpecker, lesser golden backed woodpecker, grey hornbill, spotted munia, racket-tailed drongo and pheasanttailed jacana, etc., which have become extremely rare species, but are fairly common in the Dang's forest. The majority of birds are observed during the winter followed by rainy and summer season. The area is inhabited by more than 99 different type of birds, out of these 28 are residential migratory or local migratory, 10 are migratory, 4 are water migratory and 57 are resident. Family Accipitridae was found as dominant containing maximum species (15) followed by Ardeidae (9), Phasianidae (7), and Anatidae, Dicaeidae, Muscicapidae, Rallidae and Sturnidae (4). About 50 per cent of all the species recorded have been insectivorous. Based on the frequency of occurrence and the numbers of different species encountered, it was found that a large number of bird species occur with a small population.