TSM

The Challenge

Birds add life, sound and colour to our lives. They play a vital role in ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal, biomass recycling, biological pest control, and act as sensitive indicators of environmental changes. Rapid urbanisation is causing degradation and loss of urban ecosystems, making it difficult for the birds to survive. It becomes imperative to restore the urban ecological landscape to conserve urban bird fauna.

The Solution

The Bird Habitat Enhancement Program is an integral part of the site-specific Biodiversity Action Plan of TCS campuses. Before implementing the program, biodiversity mapping exercises were undertaken at various campuses with respect to the flora and fauna to understand which species are most important, and which are the ones that require special management and further protection elsewhere within their ranges.

The program was implemented with an integrated approach to create bird habitats through protection and transplantation of native trees during construction stage, plantation of native ornamental and flowering fruits, shade trees, etc. It also focussed on creating aquatic habitats for birds as an integral part of Green Buildings through rainwater harvested lakes, reflecting pools, water tank/pond with fountains, etc. Water baths, feeders and nest boxes were also installed. Additionally, a bird care program was introduced to rescue and release injured birds in their natural habitat.

Collaboration Among Entities

Administration Team for overall ownership

Facility Management Team for maintenance

Landscape Planner/Gardening Team for various aspects of native tree plantations and maintenance of landscape

Centre Head & Finance Team for required approvals, etc.

Environmental Sustainability, Health & Safety Team involved in fulfilling the needs and expectations of various internal stakeholders and also for monitoring

The Result

Improving the greenspaces in TCS campuses through the Bird Habitat Enhancement Program not only resulted in restoration of habitats in urban ecosystems, but also led to remarkable increase in bird species - from 43 in 2016-17 to 75 in 2020-21. The campuses are also supporting a large number of aquatic, native and migratory birds as well as IUCN listed bird species.

Presence of dense vegetation, variability of fruit trees, flowering trees for feeding and less human interference resulted in occurrence of large number of nests of different species within the campus. The 1,500 nest boxes which were installed showed 100% occupancy by different bird species during their breeding season and various activities pertaining to feeding chicks and first flight of chicks from nest boxes were recorded.

Similarly, 100% utilisation of grain feeders and water baths by different species of birds were noticed. Increase in Sparrow population was recorded in all campuses. Some migratory birds also visited the aquatic habitats created as part of this program.