Why in the news?
A solar-powered transmitter is now being used to track the long-distance migration of the Pied Cuckoos (Rain birds) from the Himalayan foothills to Africa and back.
It is a joint project of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) .
An online web-based geospatial dashboard will be developed now for near-real-time monitoring of trends and patterns in the movement of Pied Cuckoo i.e., development of a location analytical tool with an API for interoperability and to perform geospatial modeling.
Basic facts about Pied Cuckoos
Popularly called the Rain bird (Megh), the Pied Cuckoo is a summer breeding visitor to Northern India.
It is closely linked with the arrival of the south west monsoon in India.
In North Indian folklore, the bird has been known as the “Chatak” that quenches its thirst only with raindrops.
It is also a brood parasite in that it does not make its own nest and instead lays its egg in the nest of other birds, particularly the Jungle Babbler.
Indian Bioresource Information portal: The Pied Cuckoo (Megh and Chatak) migration study is part of a larger project — Indian Bioresource Information portal (IBIN) funded by the Department of Biotechnology, under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology.
Source: Deccan Herald and Down to Earth
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