Powered by citizen science, the State of India’s Birds report calls for conservation efforts to save India’s aves.

A new international citizen science platform wants you to capture birdsongs in the dawn. 

Avian malaria or bird malaria has been linked to significant declines in captive and wild birds, such as penguins and Hawaiian forest birds. Common blood parasites, like Plasmodium that spread through mosquitoes and Haemoproteus that are transmitted through louse flies and biting midges, cause the disease in birds.

Higher altitudes have lower levels of oxygen, and hence animals living at such altitudes have to adapt. Having higher content of haemoglobin is one adaptation strategy used. In a recent study, scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, explore how blood parasite affect these high altitude birds.

World Migratory Bird Day is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It is observed on 2nd Saturday in May and October! It is a global awareness-raising campaign to conserve Migratory Birds.

Why do we see certain species of animals in one place while they are absent in the neighbouring regions? How do species inhabit remote islands? Questions like these are central to our understanding of evolution and speciation. Exploring these question in a Sri Lankan context, scientists from National Centre for Biological sciences and University of Colombo studied how a two species of small passerine birds colonized the island nation. Through phenotypic and genotypic analysis they could show that not all Sri Lankan wildlife is a subset of Indian wildlife.

Humans are not the only organisms under threat by the malarial parasite Plasmodium. These parasites are known to infect a range of animals from primate to reptiles, theis list also includes birds. In their recent study Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have collected these parasites from the blood of various species of birds in the Himalayan foothills. Through their study the team was to show the burden of infection in birds and the seasonality of the infection.