Bird Song: Red Avadavat (right) produces a distinctive low, single-note pseep call that is often given in flight. (Source: Express photo) Bird Song: Red Avadavat (right) produces a distinctive low, single-note pseep call that is often given in flight. (Source: Express photo)

Every morning, around 5.30 am, city-based scientist, researcher and naturalist Sachin Punekar heads out from his home to a nearby hill. On reaching there, he waits for the bird calls in the area so that he can record it. There are times, the bird stops calling abruptly, leaving him waiting endlessly till the call resumes. The reason Punekar has been following this unusual routine over the recent past is that he’s busy creating a database of calls of different species of birds.

“Over the past few years, due to rapid urbanisation, people have got disconnected with the mother nature and they hardly get to hear sounds of birds. Through my organisation Biosphere, I already have created records of calls of various birds, but they are stored in different formats, mostly videos. But under our new project ‘Call of Nature’, I wanted to create a fresh database which could be easily disseminated to common people in order to reconnect them to nature and revive the bond,” says Punekar, founder-president and principle scientist of Biosphere, who was earlier working as a senior scientist in Botanical Survey of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change.

So far, Punekar has recorded calls of nearly 50 types of birds which include Common Hawk Cuckoo, Ashy Prinia, Red Avadavit, Grey Francolin, Coppersmith Barbet, Rose-Ringed Parakeet, Red-Vented Bulbul, Yellow-Eyed Babbler, Indian Grey Hornbill, Asian Koel, Red Wattled Lapwing and so on. The bird calls have been recorded by him in areas like Parvati Hills, Purandar, Mahabaleshwar, Kaas Plateau and so on. Once Punekar is able to collect sizable amount of data, he plans to conduct scientific assessment and interpretation of the sounds.

“In the later stage, when I have significant amount of data, I plan to put them on a website or make it a part of a mobile app. As of now, just to know what others feel about the initiative, I have been sharing the recording with people from all walks of life through WhatsApp every morning. So far, I have got encouraging response and feedback. It is an ongoing project and I have not set a deadline for myself,” he says.

Birds, says Punekar, have different calls — mating, territorial and alarm calls. Besides, there is also seasonal variations in bird calls. The sub-species of the same variety of birds, will have different calls. For example, the varieties of Hornbill bird, such as Indian Grey Hornbill, Malabar Hornbill and Indian Pied Hornbill will have different calls, he says.

Given that different species of birds are found in different habitats — like grassland, scrubland, coastal, wetland, dense forests and so on — Punekar plans to segregate this data habitat-wise at a later stage.

Punekar says that recording the bird calls is a gamble and can be a challenge.

“You can’t switch on the recorder and ask the bird to call. You never know whether it will call or not and when it will stop in-between. For clear recording, one must quietly walk to reach closer to the bird or else it will fly away because of fear. There is a pattern in bird calls too. One can find calls of one or two varieties in succession until sunrise. It is followed by calls of other birds. As the heat increases, the calls are taken over by other birds. One must have immense patience for this activity,” he says.

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