Thattekad Birding Camp

The Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary, covering an area of barely 25 square km, and located about 12 km from Kothamangalam, was the first bird sanctuary in Kerala. Thattekkad literally means flat forest, and the region is an evergreen low-land forest located between the branches of Periyar River, the longestriver in Kerala.
The sanctuary was notified in 1983 based on a recommendation made by Dr. Salim Ali many years back. Dr Salim Ali described Thattekad in the 1930’s as the richest bird habitat in peninsular India, comparable only with the eastern Himalayas. Since then much of the forest has been diverted to cultivation and teak and mahogany plantation but what survives gives a glimpse of the phenomenal bird diversity of the once widespread lowland forests of Kerala.
Number of bird species found in this small sanctuary is almost 250, probably the most dense as compared to its area.