Silent Valley bird species goes up to 175

Subject : Environment

Context:

A bird survey conducted at the Silent Valley National Park in the last week of December identified 141 species, of which 17 were new. So far, 175 species of birds have been spotted in Silent Valley.

About the survey:

The survey was held in association with the Kerala Natural History Society.
The first survey was held in the last week of December 1990.
139 birds had been identified in a survey held in 2006, and the number of species went up to 142 in the last survey held in 2014.
Brown wood owl, Banded bay cuckoo, Malabar woodshrike, White-throated kingfisher, Indian nightjar, Jungle nightjar, and Large cuckooshrike were among the 17 species newly identified in the Silent Valley.
Birds such as Crimson-backed sunbird, Yellow-browed bulbul, Black bulbul, Indian white-eye and Indian swiftlet were found in abundance in Silent Valley.
Endemic birds sighted in the survey are:
- Nilgiri laughingthrush, Nilgiri flowerpecker, Brown-cheeked fulvetta, Black-and-orange flycatcher, Grey-headed canary-flycatcher, Greenish warbler, Common chiffchaff, Tytler’s leaf warbler, Shaheen falcon, Nilgiri wood pigeon, and Malabar whistling thrush.

About the Silent Valley National Park:

Silent Valley national park is one of the magnificent beauties of nature in Kerala. It is a core part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and located in the Nilgiri hills.
The national park is one of the most protected and untouched areas of rain forests and tropical moist evergreen forest in the South Western Ghats.
The Silent Valley National Park comes under the Western Ghats World Heritage Site.
UNESCO declared parts of Western Ghats as World Heritage site in the year 2007.

The entire park is surrounded by a buffer zone to protect the flora and fauna. The buffer zone accounts to 148 sq. Km.
Silent valley National park is surrounded by New Amarambalam Reserved Forest, Karimpuzha Wildlife Sanctuary and Nedumkayam Rainforest in Nilambur Taluk of Malappuram district.
On the other side the national park is borders with Mukurthi National Park of Nilgiris district and Attappadi Reserved Forest in Mannarkkad Taluk of Palakkad district.
It is the last remaining rain forest of Kerala.
It was declared a Reserve forest in 1914.
Then in 1984 it was declared as a national park.
Sairandhrivanam, which translates as Sairandhri’s Forest, is the native name for the Silent Valley region.
- Draupadi, the Pandavas’ wife, disguised herself as Sairandhri, the maid of a queen named Sudeshna while her family was in exile, according to the epic Mahabharatha.
During the monsoons, Silent Valley receives a lot of rain, however the exact amount varies due to the region’s varying geography.

FLORA:

The park’s valley areas are part of an Eco-region of tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests.
The South Western Ghats montane rain forests region includes hilly terrain above 1,000 metres. Above 1,500 metres, evergreen forests give place to stunted forests known as sholas, which are mixed with open grassland.
The valley’s flora includes around 1000 flowering plant species, 108 orchid species, 100 ferns and fern allies, 200 liverworts, 75 lichens, and roughly 200 algae.
The Western Ghats are home to the bulk of these flora.

FAUNA:

Many endangered species such as the lion-tailed macaque, tiger, gaur, leopard, wild boar, panther, Indian Civet, and Sambhar can be found in Silent Valley Park.