This Secondary Area is defined by the range of Forest Owlet Athene blewitti (classified as Critical) which occurs (or occurred) in eastern Madhya Pradesh, north-west Maharashtra and north-west Orissa in India, where it was recorded in moist deciduous forest and wild mango groves, sometimes near streams. It is known only from specimens collected before 1884, as the only specimen record during the twentieth century (from Gujarat in 1914) has been proved to be fraudulent, and no sight records or photographs are acceptable (Ripley 1976, Ali and Ripley 1987, Rasmussen and Collar in prep. a,b). There is thus no information on whether it occurs in any protected areas (see IUCN 1992c), or on the extent to which it has been affected by forest loss.

Stattersfield, A. J., Crosby, M. J., Long, A. J. and Wege, D. C. (1998) Endemic Bird Areas of the World. Priorities for biodiversity conservation. BirdLife Conservation Series 7. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International.

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2025) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Central Indian forests. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/374 on 24/01/2025.