India's nocturnal bird

JERDON'S Courser is a nocturnal bird, inhabitant of Andhra Pradesh. The bird is critically endangered. It is the only prevalent bird to Andhra Pradesh. It has a big eye for night vision, a black crown, a yellow beak and orange throat patch and is found only in thin, scrubby areas with bushes between two and three meters in height. The call of the bird is – kwikkoooo.. kwikoooo..kwikkooooo...




At first Thomas C. Jerdon spotted this bird in 1848 but not seen again until 1986 when Bharat Bhushan, an ornithologist at the Bombay Natural History Society rediscovered the species that had been feared extinct. This courser is a restricted-range endemic found in India in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh.

The construction of the Telugu-Ganga canal, around the border of the wildlife sanctuary was proposed. The proposed path of the canal threatened the sanctuary, conservationists including Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS, BirdLife in India) and RSPB (BirdLife in the UK) .They urged the Supreme Court of India to get involved. The Supreme Court stopped the construction work, and now, three years later on, a new route has been approved which avoids most of the protected sites.

Activities taken to protect the endangered species
To take on conservation research on the Jerdon's courser to find out inhabitants size and distribution and to spot out the current intimidation to the birds; to produce a management plan based on the study and monitoring; to offer training for BNHS and Forestry Department staff; to lift the profile of the Jerdon's course both at national and local levels.