മണം Veterinary College Pookode മണം Veterinary College Pookode | Page 104

Black shouldered kit
watching and field ornithology
was arranged on the eve of the first
day for new comers in the field.
Our energy doubled when the Post
Graduate Students of Cetnre for
Wildlife agreed to join us. The total
strength of birders for the CBMP-
2019 jumped to 40 strong. We
divided ourselves to small teams
and set out to explore the campus.
Most of us liked to use the pen and
paper method for taking checklist,
and later uploaded to ebird from our
laptops. A selected few like myself
used the app for data entry.
It was four days of togetherness
and camaraderie. We got to know
better about our sprawling 100 acre
campus and various types of vegeta-
tion it holds. It was quite curious to
find the bird species encountered
varied considerably as the vegeta-
tion changed even in this relatively
small 100 acre of geography. Black
winged kite and Common Kestrels
were seen only among the degraded
hill slopes where grasses grew. Tall
trees hosted mixed hunting parties
under leadership of Greater Racket-
tailed Drongos. An artificial pond
that serves as the water
source of campus was the
feeding ground for white
egrets and herons. Coffee
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Crested serpent eagle
plantations had war-
blers and sunbirds. Our
college garden was the
favourite spot for pied
bushchat and house
sparrows to hang out.
The rocky protuber-
ances opposite to the
men's hostel came
alive at night when the
Savannah Nightjars
starts to sing. For many
of us, the campus had
transformed form a
place with buildings
where boring lectures
happened to a paradise