Data on rainforest birds from line transect surveys in the Kalakad - Mundathurai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India

This dataset contains data on rainforest bird communities collected along line transects in Kalakad - Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India, as part of doctoral research leading up to the following thesis:
Raman, T. R. S. 2001. Community ecology and conservation of mid-elevation tropical rainforest bird communities in the southern Western Ghats, India. PhD thesis, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Part of the data (from transects T2 and T3, in particular) was used in the following publication:
Raman, T. R. S. 2003. Assessment of census techniques for inter-specific comparisons of tropical rainforest bird densities. Ibis 145: 9-21. http://doi.org/10.1046/j.1474-919X.2003.00105.x

The Raman (2003) publication also uses bird point count data (from T2 and T3) available in a related dataset:  
Raman, T. R. S.,  Mudappa, D., Jeganathan, P., Joshi, N. V., Sukumar, R. 2022. Data on bird communities and vegetation in relation to altitude and habitat alteration in the Kalakad - Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India. Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.41ns1rngj

GEOGRAPHICAL AREA: Kalakad-Mundathurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR), 895 km² sanctuary located between 8°25′ to 8°53′ N and 77°10′ to 77°35′ E in Tamil Nadu state in the Western Ghats mountain range of India.

TAXONOMIC SCOPE: Birds, mammals

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I am grateful to P. Pavithra for help with data entry and compilation.

Methods
Bird data are from 600 m long line transect surveys surveyed typically in about 60 min duration in the early morning hours. The methods for bird sampling are as described in Raman (2003) and in this doctoral thesis:

Raman, T. R. S. 2001. Community ecology and conservation of mid-elevation tropical rainforest bird communities in the southern Western Ghats, India. PhD thesis, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

All transects were censused during the first 3 h after sunrise when bird activity was highest in the area (unpublished data). The 600-m-long transect was walked in about 1 h, at a slow, uniform pace. All birds seen (perched or flying under the canopy) or heard were recorded as to species, number (wherever possible) and perpendicular distance in the following metre classes: 0–5, 5–10, 10–15, 15–20, 20–30, 30–50 and 50–100. The further distance classes were wider to minimize errors in distance estimation (verified using a range finder whenever possible).