Ahmedabad, India’s seventh-largest city, has 181 bird species or nearly one-third of Gujarat’s avifauna

A new atlas released by Ahmedabad University recorded 181 bird species in Ahmedabad, nearly a third of Gujarat’s avifauna, in a single winter season.

The recently published Ahmedabad City Bird Atlas, the first urban bird atlas from Western India, found that insectivorous birds formed the largest group, 25 per cent of the species recorded were migratory visitors, and species richness was highest along the edges of the city.

The project was led by researchers from Ahmedabad University in collaboration with Bird Conservation Society Gujarat and the Community Ecology and Conservation Biology lab, with support from Bird Count India and eBird India. The Atlas is based on systematic grid-based surveys conducted between December 2024 and January 2025.

Dozens of volunteers participated in structured field surveys across 61 grid cells, following standardised protocols and submitting complete checklists through eBird. Their participation enabled city-wide data collection at scale, noted a statement by the university.

Research findings

Out of the 181 species, 45 (25 per cent) are migratory visitors, 11 (6 per cent) are local migratory visitors, one is a passover migrant and the rest 124 (69 per cent) species are resident birds.

The most common were insectivorous species (40 per cent) followed by aquatic predators (20 per cent), omnivores (20 per cent), granivores (8 per cent), carnivores (6 per cent), frugivores (3 per cent) and herbivores (3 per cent).

Higher number of species were recorded in the outskirts. “The interior of Ahmedabad city has a unform richness of around 20-40 bird species which is lesser than the outer edges of the city. The outer edges have a less dense matrix of urban habitats and is interspersed with more open habitats and green spaces,” the study noted.

Of the 181 species recorded during the survey, five of the most commonly documented birds include the Eurasian Collared-Dove, Common Myna, Rock Pigeon, Rose-ringed Parakeet and the Black Kite. “These bird species have adapted to thrive in urban areas,” said the study.

“The results of the city-wide bird atlas shows that the more threatened species are rarely observed in the cities,” it concluded.