Understanding the bird species assemblages found in and around Thane creek, Maharashtra, India

This paper investigates the bird species assemblages in and around Thane creek, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Despite Thane creek being a popular spot for urban birdwatchers, limited knowledge exists about this creek beyond bird species richness and particularly the charismatic flamingoes. The entire creek was divided into four localities based on the vegetation characteristic variables and 12 observation points (three under each locality). Field surveys were conducted in January and February 2018, a period when the inward migration and return migration of birds take place. We identified 125 bird species belonging to 90 genera, 47 families, and 18 orders. The most species-rich locality was Bhandup pumping station with 106 species (84.8%), while the Thane creek flamingo sanctuary was the most species abundant, with 899 individuals (33.32%). Koper khairane locality had the lowest diversity, with 75 species (60%) and 338 individuals (12.52%). Bhandup pumping station had the highest Shannon’s index (4.42), while the flamingo sanctuary had the lowest values of Shannon’s index (3.88), Simpson’s index (0.962), and evenness index (0.86). Non-parametric multidimensional scaling revealed significant differences in bird species abundance among observation points (stress = 0.1048). Pearson’s correlation test revealed significant correlation between shrub density with bird species richness ( r 2 = 5.962, P < 0.05). Total abundance-based multiple site dissimilarity ( β bc ) was 0.6174, with the balanced variation component ( β bc.bal = 0.4586) being higher than the abundance gradient component ( β bc.gra = 0.1588). This suggests that β bc.bal primarily influences the bird community structure found here. The results of this study will help in understanding the avifaunal diversity found inside Thane creek of India and the conservation perspectives of creek avifauna.