The sanctuary lies on the left side (west) of the road from the university entrance gate to the basketball court.
KOCHI: A bird sanctuary inside a university? Kerala has that too.
In what would be a first for an educational institution in the country, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit has a sprawling bird sanctuary located inside its campus in Kalady.
Located on three acres of the varsity’s 67-acre land, the Poorna Bird Sanctuary established in 2013 is home and host to around 120 species of birds, besides a variety of insects and plants.
Manoj Painungal, the library assistant, says the proposal to set up the bird sanctuary was made by Sukrithi Forest Club and prepared by Dr Dilip K G, former head of the university’s sociology department in 2013.
“The initial aim was to secure the habitat of the black-crowned night herons which are endemic to the area,” he says. A five-acre portion, housing a patch of trees and a pond, was earmarked, Manoj recalls.
A study had revealed that the Black-crowned night herons began roosting in the area about a decade ago. “From just a few birds, their number has increased to more than 200,” says Manoj.
The sanctuary lies on the left side (west) of the road from the university entrance gate to the basketball court. It has native riparian trees like neermaruthu (Arjun tree), manimaruthu (Pride of India) and venga (Indian Kino tree).
Manoj says birds like the pond heron, purple heron, chestnut bittern, white-breasted waterhen, purple moorhen, lesser whistling teal, cotton teal, little cormorant, open-billed stork and woolly-necked stork besides migrant species like the pied crested cuckoo, spotted sandpiper, common sandpiper and black-winged stilt can be spotted in the sanctuary.
“The forest department helped Sukrithi Forest Club identify and plant trees suitable for the terrain. Since there are marshy areas, riparian trees were planted. The forest department also took care of the trees until they grew and then handed the area over to the club,” he says.
Since then, students and faculty members have been keeping track of the birds and other animal species that have made the sanctuary their home.
“The forest club, under the leadership of convenors Adarsh and Aiswarya, has been keeping a checklist of the bird species roosting in the sanctuary with the help of the ebird mobile app. Anyone on the campus can click a photograph of the birds and upload it on the app,” Manoj says.
Students, birders and other staff of the university are also mapping the biodiversity of the campus, says Manoj. “It is very heartening to see that communal roosting at night, it is an indicator of the birds making the sanctuary their safe haven,” he says.
