RESEARCH

Grassland bioacoustic project- Rajasthan and Arunachal Pradesh (September 2019- present)

As a research assistant under Dr. Anand Krishnan at IISER Pune, I study bird acoustic community at a landscape level, in grassland habitats of Rajasthan and Arunachal Pradesh. This project is funded by Anand’s SERB and INSPIRE fellowship, as well as a bunch of grants I won including the Rufford Small Grant (Along with my colleague Ram Mohan), IDEA WILD equipment grant, and the Oriental Bird Club grant.

In spite of being one of the most neglected habitat in India, grasslands are extremely important both ecologically (sustaining myriad life-forms, including several endemic and of conservation concern) as well as socially (maintaining livelihoods of local communities). Long term monitoring of grassland habitats to study birds gives a promising platform to study dynamics across multiple years.

Acoustic communication strategies in sympatric drongos (Dehing Patkai WLS, Assam. Dec 2018- May 2019)

My thesis research focused on studying the acoustic communication strategies in 4 species of drongos that occur in sympatry- the Greater Racket-tailed, the Lesser Racket-tailed, the Bronzed and the Hair-crested drongo. The study was conducted in Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, one of India’s last remaining lowland evergreen forest. This work has been presented at the International Bioacoustics Conference, Sussex, UK.

Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary (January 2018)

Joining Dr. Umesh Srinivasan, Dr. Nandini Velho and the people of the Bugun community, I walked around to map patrolling routes for the guards, as well as learned about mist-netting birds from Umesh. I also spotted a red panda and a marbled cat in a span of 10 days, to the (Still!) great envy of many people at Eaglenest. Experiences from Eaglenest have been published in Livemint newspaper as well as National Geographic Traveller India

Bat Research Project- Uttarakhand (June 2016)

Joining Rohit Chakravarty and Zareef, his amazing field assistant, I spent a blissful time at 3 locations in Uttarakhand, mistnetting bats (or at least trying to), birding by the day, and eating some amazing food- especially pork- prepared by Lumti, the manager of the birding lodge at Pangot!

I also saw my 400th bird (The Upland Pipit) as well as some more wonderful Himalayan birds. Read about it here.

The hornbill project- Pakke Tiger Reserve (June 2015)

My first field-work experience was a blissful month spent at Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, with Nature Conservation Foundation, Bengaluru. Here I observed the nests of the two species of hornbills and studied nesting ecology. This month involved rain soaked early morning rides to the forest, good food (always a big incentive!), waiting for phone signal at the river bank while watching hornbills coming in to roost, and working with some lovely people- both locals as well as fellow researchers. Read about my experience in detail in my blog.