Babesa sewage treatment plant as a vital artificial wetland habitat for a multitude of avian species

This study aimed to glean basic ecological aspects on diversity and abundance, temporal variation and guild composition of the birds at Babesa Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). The line transect method was used as the sampling technique from November 2021 to October 2022. A total of 80 species belonging to 58 genera, 29 families, and 11 orders were detected, of which three, namely, River Lapwing Vanellus duvaucelii, Falcated Duck Mareca falcata, and Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca, are ‘Near Threatened’ with the remaining being ‘Least Concern’. The highest species richness was recorded in the winter (6.29), the highest species diversity in the spring (2.73), and the highest evenness in the summer (0.76). There was not any statistically significant difference between non-waterbirds and waterbirds, or between feeding guilds. However, based on a permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA), the bird composition was significantly different among seasons. Subsequently, pairwise comparisons revealed a significant difference between autumn & winter (P = 0.006), autumn & summer (P = 0.006), autumn & spring (P = 0.018), winter & summer (P = 0.006), winter & spring (P = 0.006) as well as spring & summer (P = 0.006). The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) biplot showed most bird species overlap occurred between autumn and spring as well as summer and spring, respectively. Taken together, the present results suggest that the Babesa STP holds significant potential as a habitat for diverse avian populations and underscores the ecological significance of artificial wetlands

Predation by the wolfsnake Lycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758) on the house gecko Hemidactylus frenatus Duméril & Bibron, 1836 in Tsirang District, Kingdom of Bhutan

Wolfsnakes, genus Lycodon Fitzinger, 1826, are known to prey upon rodents and frogs (Fritts, 1993), and they may even endanger the survival of bird species (Khamcha and Gale, 2020). However, their biggest impact as a predator is most likely on the broad variety of lizards they consume, including house geckos, skinks, and agamids (Fritts, 1993; Pauwels et al., 2005; Vogel et al., 2009; Zhang and Wang, 2014). Lycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758) in particular is known to feed on common house geckos (Daniel, 2002; Jackson and Fritts, 2004) and, consequently, it may frequently be seen in and around residential buildings where these prey species are most commonly encountered (Shroff, 2016)