Diversity of Avifauna and their Heterogeneous Habitat Preference in a Sub-Urban Area in West Bengal, India

Avifauna are important for the ecosystem as they play various roles as scavengers, pollinators, seed dispersal agents and predators of insect pest and an important indicator to evaluate different habitats both qualitatively and quantitatively. A study was conducted during February 2012 to February 2015 in Chinsurah, the district town of Hooghly, West Bengal, India. This study was done in ix different habitats present in the core region of the town. These are agricultural land, river bank, small woody area, small water body, grassland and human habitat. A total of 67 avian species were recorded during this study. These species show preferences to various habitats, where some are specialist to one of the habitats and some are generalist to different habitats. Abundance of birds in different habitats is different, most probably due to the variation in amounts of resources in these habitats. Due to loss of natural habitats habitat specialists are gradually replaced by habitat generalists