West Bengal is the fourth most populous state with 23 districts and is situated in the eastern part of India. West Bengal shares its international borders with Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. The capital city of the state is Kolkata, one of the country’s most populated and the most significant city. Five Indian states shares their boundaries with West Bengal; namely Assam, Sikkim, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. The state spread over from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south.

The wide variety in physical feature and climate conditions have resulted in a diversity of ecological habitats in West Bengal, like coastal and marine ecosystem, mangroves ecosystem, wetland ecosystem, grassland ecosystem, tropical or evergreen forest and alpine forest ecosystem.

The Marine ecosystem in the state is located in Sunderbans of south 24 Pgs district under Tiger Reserve and Biosphere Reserve areas covering coastline of 650 Kms in the northern part of Bay of Bengal. Sunderban was declared as a World Heritage site in 1987. Mangrove forest ecosystem is a typical salt evergreen forest found mainly at Sunderbans covering an area of about 4200 Sq km. The site comprises a tangled network of mudflats, tidal waterways, and small islands of salt-tolerant (highly saline) mangrove forests. The main characteristic feature of mangrove vegetation is the presence of aerial breathing root and oviparous germination. The soil of Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram, Bankura and Midnapore is made from the soil of the Deccan Plateau, the dry part of the state. The predominant wetland types of the State are marshes, jheels, terai grasslands, swamps, char lands of the Gangetic plains, wetlands in the Island of Bay of Bengal and coastal brackish water. These wetlands harbour enormous diversity of flora and fauna species many of which are endangered. In West Bengal Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary has pure grassland extends over 30.55 Sq. km. In Buxa Tiger Reserve, riverine grasslands and savannah woodlands occupy a considerable part of 51.31 Sq.km. The riverine grassland and Savannah woodland occupy about 20% of the total plant cover of Gorumara National Park. In Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, the sea facing areas have a long line of Saccharum grassland. Tropical forest rises roughly to an altitude of about 1200 m, contains deep sided valleys and gorges with well drained flanking slope clothed in dense evergreen jungles. It is characterized by gigantic trees, climbers draping their tops. These tropical forest harbour enormous diversity of flora and fauna species many of which are endangered. Alpine zone stretches above 3650 m

altitude- the limit of tree growth. The vegetation is restricted here fir, pine, rhododendron, juniper and cotoneasters scrub. Plant life in this zone is dependent entirely on snowfall and melting snow, and gets progressively dwarfed and scanty towards the upper limits.

Study of birds in West Bengal started scientifically during the British colonial period from late 18th century. The British were keen naturalists and sportsmen and noted their observations in diaries and journals. In 1832, the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was commenced and published in Calcutta. A first trained Zoologist of his time, Edward Blyth (1810-1873) worked as a curator of zoology at the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta and he updated the museum’s catalogue and published ‘A Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic Society’ in 1849. He rendered devoted service to the society at a pittance of salary over 20 years. A British ornithologist Allan Octavian Hume (1829- 1912) edited a highly popular journal called Stray Feathers and described the collection at ‘Gleanings from the Calcutta Market’. C.M. Inglis (1870-1954), a Scottish naturalist, was the curator of Darjeeling Museum,
was run by Bengal Natural History Society. He wrote many articles in this journal, amongst these Birds of Duars & A tentative list of the vertibrates of the Jalpaiguri district, are the most remarkable contributions. Pradyot Kumar Sen Gupta (1898-1979), by profession a civil servant of Bengal, who scientifically documented birds in and around ‘Calcutta’ and ‘Santiniketan’ of Birbhum district. He serialised in 10 parts the notes that he took, along with his personal observations and discoveries, in Visva-Bharati News.

Besides English literature we have a glorious presence of many Bengali books and magazines that are directly related to birds, birdwatching, on their behavioural studies, distributions, folklores, regional cultures etc. Dr Satya Churn Law (1888-1984) was the member of BOU’s (British Ornithologists’ Union) in 1937 and wrote three famous Bengali books Pakhir Katha (1921), Kalidaser Pakhi (1934) and Jalachari (1935). A posthumous Rabindra Puroshkar winner in 1996, Ajay Home (1913-1992) was a famous Bengali aviculturist, ornithologist and naturalist of India. He compiled the information collected during four decades of travel and exploration in the wilderness of eastern India in his book Banglar Pakhi and Chena Achena Pakhi. He was the inspiration of Prakriti Samsad, a Nature Study group in West Bengal.

Dr Biswamoy Biswas(1923-1994)

Besides English literature we have a glorious presence of many Bengali books and magazines that are directly related to birds, birdwatching, on their behavioural studies, distributions, folklores, regional cultures etc. Dr Satya Churn Law (1888-1984) was the member of BOU’s (British Ornithologists’ Union) in 1937 and wrote three famous Bengali books Pakhir Katha (1921), Kalidaser Pakhi (1934) and Jalachari (1935). A posthumous Rabindra Puroshkar winner in 1996, Ajay Home (1913-1992) was a famous Bengali aviculturist, ornithologist and naturalist of India. He compiled the information collected during four decades of travel and exploration in the wilderness of eastern India in his book Banglar Pakhi and Chena Achena Pakhi. He was the inspiration of Prakriti Samsad, a Nature Study group in West Bengal.

The first attempt was made to prepare the bird checklist of West Bengal by Sumit Sen and listed 865 species but later it was not updated. A list of birds of West Bengal with Bengali names was prepared by Apurba Chakraborty and Kushal Mookherjee in 2004 and listed 803 species. This is the first comprehensive checklist of birds of West Bengal, a result of literature on their identification. This is also true for out of range, single, historical sightings where, without proper supporting documentation it is tough to validate them. The records of renowned birdwatchers, naturalists or ornithologists with field notes have been accepted. The records of colourful male bird where identification was easy, have been validated. Though it is true that the addition of such records to the final checklist create some error but we strongly believe that like specimen collection and photographic evidence, the proper field notes are equally important in ornithology. No record without field note has been accepted.

West Bengal is now at the first place according to the number of species in India.

According to the current census, the population of West Bengal is estimated to be around 101.4 million or 10.14 crores which ultimately gives it the fourth rank in terms of the people across the country. The major ethnic group residing in the state is Bengali.

For the evaluation, and acceptance, of species records from the state, we followed the criteria in Praveen et al. (2013). If a species fulfilled at least one of the four criteria, it was accepted for the West Bengal checklist. Of the four criteria, occurrence of preserved specimen in GBIF,BNHS,Trivandram Museum etc, is the ultimate proof of a species of the state; following this is a photograph, or call recording, that establishes, beyond doubt, the identity of a species, and is available in the public domain e.g eBIRD, Facebook etc either as a published record, accessible on a website, or available to us for scrutiny; the third are unpreserved specimens that have been examined by knowledgeable field workers; and the last is sight records that is assessed according to the varying degrees of the observers’ supporting documentation.

Our first target was to collect preserved specimen information. For this, we have searched Global Biodiversity Information Facility (hereinafter GBIF) website which includes Natural History Museum, London (hereinafter NHMUK), Naturalis Biodiversity Center (hereinafter RMNH) Netherland and several American museums, like American Museum for Natural History, New York (hereinafter AMNH), Field Museum for Natural History, Chicago (hereinafter FMNH), Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (hereinafter YPM), and National Museum of Natural History, Washington (USNM) preserved specimen information. We have got 591 preserved specimens records after checking the locality meticulously. We have also searched some catalogues e.g., ‘Catalogue of the birds in the museum Asiatic Society’ by Edward Blyth, ‘A catalogue of the Birds in the collection of the BNHS’ by Humayun Abdulali, ‘Catalogue of the birds in the British Museum’, Catalogue of birds in the Provincial Museum Luckow and Trivandrum Bird’s collection, India. Most of the collections of the specimen was from Calcutta Market, Darjeeling and Duars. A.O. Hume mentioned explicitly that all specimens of Calcutta Market had been procured within a radius of 25 miles, the great mass of the birds within 10 miles from the stalls where they were sold. So, all specimens from the Calcutta Market have been accepted. We should clear any doubt about the Duars region. Duars is the foothill includes West Bengal, Bhutan and Assam which is 35 km wide. Western Duars is from Teesta River of West Bengal to Goalpara district of Assam. Bengal Duars were created after Bhutan War of 1865 and merged with Jalpaiguri district in 1869. Buxa Duars is from Torsa River to Sankos River. West Bengal Duars is from Teesta River to Sankos River. Sikkim Duars is the western side of Jaldhaka River. Darjeeling terai is the western part of Teesta River. So, the specimens from Darjeeling terai, Sikkim Duars, Bengal Duars and Buxa Duars have been accepted. Bhutan Duars comprises Jalpaiguri district and Assam. The specimens from Bhutan Duars are not added except ‘Bhutan Duars, Bengal’ mentioned.

Bird-watchers of West Bengal are among the pioneersof bird photography in India. They share their photographs to the several online websites as well as eBIRD. We have got 861 eBIRD medias, a major contribution.

The records from specimens, photographs cover 933 species in West Bengal, which is quite remarkable.During the preparation of the state checklist we realised that it is difficult to evaluate sight records which are published in reputed journal, book and newsletter. It is also quite difficult to accept a record of a bird with variable plumage that are difficult to identify in the field due to a lack of detailed 744 specimen records, 861 medias and 9 other observations which are scrutinised meticulously

We found the following status of species in West Bengal Least Concern: 839, critically endangered: 12, endangered: 12, near threatened: 48, vulnerable: 27, not evaluated: 3, data deficient: 1

Systematic list of birds in West Bengal. Acronym: B: BNHS, D: Derby Museum Liverpool, G: GBIF, L: State Museum Lucknow, N: NHM, T: TNNH, U: Untraced (but specimen once mentioned), Z: ZSI, M: eBird media/ photograph, Blank: Other observation.