Useful information on birds and avian ecology would be available on the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) centre website of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), supported by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

The ENVIS website www.bnhsenvis.nic.in is a user-friendly website easy for navigation and is contemporary and regularly updated to provide information in birds to maximum number of people, both scientists as well as bird lovers, BNHS director Dr A Rahmani said today.

Its main strength is its exceptional collection of databases related to avian ecology of the Indian subcontinent.

Important databases on the site include state/ union territory-wise bird list, endemic birds of India, important bird areas (IBAs), list of birds of Indian subcontinent, threatened birds of India, names of birds in regional languages of India, migratory birds of India, checklist of Indian water birds and changed common names/scientific names of birds of Indian subcontinent, Rahmani said.

The bibliographic database contains over 15,000 references and provides facility to search through different fields such as author, year, title and journals. The recently launched database of abstracts provides abstracts of research papers on avian ecology based on keywords.

The website is available in English, Hindi and Marathi, and also contains other interesting features including basic information on Indian birds, history of Indian ornithology, tips on bird watching, bird census, bird diversity in India and news on birds.

An interactive section is dedicated to the rare grassland bird - Bustard and the Species Recovery Plan for another rare bird Jerdon's Courser, he said adding that there is also a kid's corner, which is an interactive page meant for school children.

BNHS was selected for an ENVIS Centre by MoEF during the year of Salim Ali Birth Centenary in 1996.