Supporting listing and monitoring of birds across India
Animated Migration Maps
Enabled by the observations of 1000s of birdwatchers around the world
Newsletter
Bunting Count
Join the 3rd edition of Bunting Count where Asian countries are teaming up to monitor buntings for conservation. The goal is to raise awareness and conduct baseline studies on key bunting sites..
Uttarakhand Bird Count
Join us in welcoming winter with the Uttarakhand Bird Count 2024 on November 16th and 17th! This inaugural event aims to create an annual tradition of bird counting in Uttarakhand..
WINGS – Birds of India
Having started in 2005 in Mumbai, this event has now spread to many cities and regions of the country. One of the main idea is to search for birds from […]
Great Backyard Bird Count 2025
GBBC as an event is a wonderful opportunity to spread the word about birding to birders and non-birders.
Forest Wagtail
Forest Wagtail (Dendronanthus indicus) breeds in East Asia (largely China) and migrates to southern and eastern India, and Southeast Asia during winter.
PhD Researchers sharing their bird data on eBird
This post spotlights researchers who have completed their PhDs and shared their high-quality bird datasets on eBird. These datasets, often gathered from under-studied landscapes, highlight how academic research can elevate citizen science.
Dark egrets can be white…
By Ramit Singal The previous article focussed on the 4 regularly occurring white egrets from India. In this follow-up post, the attention will shift to egrets that happen to be dimorphic, i.e., they have a dark morph as well as a white morph. The Reef-Egrets are...
Bird Atlases
A bird atlas is a citizen science project intended to map the distribution and abundance of a region’s birds. In an atlas project, the region of interest is typically divided into cells that are often subdivided into smaller cells, a design that can ensure uniform sampling in space by volunteer birdwatchers.
ID Articles
A series of articles to help with the identification of difficult birds.
The Jungle Babbler and its Six Sisters
The guide to identifying the 7 species of turdoides babblers found in India
Frequency Matters: Acoustic Identification of Barbets
By Anand Krishnan Barbets are some of the most ubiquitous of India’s fruit-eating birds, even occupying most major cities where fruiting trees remain. These sluggish, largely green birds are often heard before they are seen, their loud, repetitive calls betraying...
फ्लाईकैचर की पहचान करना: रेड-ब्रेस्टेड, टैगा और कश्मीर फ्लाईकैचर
रेड-ब्रेस्टेड, टैगा और कश्मीर फ्लाईकैचर तीनो एक जैसे दिखने वाले फ्लाईकैचर हैं। लेकिन इन तीन प्रजातियों के बीच अंतर करना मुश्किल हो सकता है! हालाँकि नर की पहचान करना काफी आसान है परन्तु मादा और पहले शीतकालीन पक्षियों को अलग-अलग बता पाना बेहद मुश्किल है। हालांकि यह आलेख उन प्रमुख विशेषताओं का वर्णन करता है जिससे पहचान करने में मदद मिलती हैं, याद रखें कि पृथक्करण के लिए इनमें से कई विशेषताएँ अपर्याप्त हैं। इन तीन बहुत समान दिखने वाली फ्लाईकैचर को अलग करने के लिए आपको अक्सर कई विशेषताओं के संयोजन पर विचार करने की आवश्यकता होगी।
Identifying Swallows: Red-rumped, Barn, Streak-throated and Wire-tailed Swallow
By Kaushik Sarkar and Ashwin Viswanathan Presented here is an easy guide to help identify the four most common Swallow species in India. You can also download just the photographic guide to this article: PDF format (345 KB). In India, there are 15 species of...
Identifying Flycatchers: Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher
By Tarun Menon and Ashwin Viswanathan This article is available in Hindi, Kannada, and Marathi Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher are three very similar looking flycatchers belonging to the Ficedula genus. Initially, all three were considered to be...
Keeping an ear out for prinias: A beginner’s guide to vocal identification
-Anand Krishnan Every new birdwatcher starts off identifying birds using illustrations of plumage in a field guide. Building field skills, we all eventually use a suite of traits to ID birds, of which plumage is just one. Behavioural traits, habitat and other...
What’s that White Egret sp?
By Ramit Singal Egrets are beautiful and elegant birds to watch. You'll often see them standing still over water and, in a flash, using their long, pointed bills to stab a fish or pick out an insect. No matter where you are in India, it is common to see one or many...
Identifying Waders: Part 2
This article focusses on the two species of a group of very small shorebirds known as Stints (Calidris sp) - the Little Stint and the Temminck's Stint.
Identifying Paddyfield Pipits
The Paddyfield Pipit is resident across most parts of the country and this is an excellent time of the year to familiarise oneself with the most common pipit of the region.
Leafbirds – Golden-fronted, Jerdon’s and others
By Ramit Singal There are four species of leafbirds (also known as chloropsis) found in India and they never fail to enthral a birder. Each of them is largely green, slender in build, with a medium-length tail and the habit of dwelling in the top or mid-canopy....
Identifying Waders: Part 1
In the first part of the series related to identifying waders, we try and tackle an often misidentified group consisting of the Tringa sandpipers.
ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕಗಳ ಗುರುತಿಸುವಿಕೆ: ನೆತ್ತರುಗಲ್ಲದ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕ, ಬೂದು ನೆತ್ತರುಗಲ್ಲದ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕ ಮತ್ತು ಕಾಶ್ಮೀರಿ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕ
ನೆತ್ತರುಗಲ್ಲ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕ (Red-breasted Flycatcher), ಬೂದು ನೆತ್ತರುಗಲ್ಲ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕ (Taiga Flycatcher) ಮತ್ತು ಕಾಶ್ಮೀರಿ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕಗಳು (Kashmir Flycatcher) ಫಿಸೆಡುಲಾ (Ficedula) ಎಂಬ ಪ್ರಬೇಧಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿರುತ್ತವೆ. ಈ ಮೂರು ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕಗಳು ನೋಡಲು ಒಂದೇ ರೀತಿ ಕಾಣುವುದರಿಂದ ಸಹಜವಾಗಿ ವೀಕ್ಷಕರನ್ನು ಗೊಂದಲಕ್ಕೀಡು ಮಾಡುತ್ತವೆ. ಆರಂಭದಲ್ಲಿ, ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮೂರು ಜಾತಿಯ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕಗಳನ್ನು ನೆತ್ತರುಗಲ್ಲ ನೊಣಹಿಡುಕದ ಉಪಜಾತಿಗಳೆಂದೇ ಪರಿಗಣಿಸಲಾಗಿತ್ತು, ಈಗ ಬೇರೆ ಬೇರೆ ಜಾತಿಯವು. ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗಿನ ಆಣ್ವಿಕ ಸಂಶೋಧನೆಯು ಇವೆಲ್ಲವೂ ಒಂದೇ ಸೋದರಿಯ ಗುಂಪಿಗೆ ಸೇರಿದ್ದವೆಂದು ಅದನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸುತ್ತದೆ, ಅಂದರೆ ಇವೆಲ್ಲವುದರ ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗಿನ ಮೂಲ ಪೂರ್ವಜರು ಒಂದೇ ಎಂದು ಅರ್ಥ.
Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker and Stripe-breasted Woodpecker: How can they be told apart?
By Pritam Baruah and Ashwin Viswanathan Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker (FBWO) and Stripe-breasted Woodpecker (SBWO) and are variable woodpeckers that form a species pair in the genus Dendrocopos. Both species can be distinguished from other similar co-occuring...
Identifying Flycatchers: Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher
By Tarun Menon and Ashwin Viswanathan This article is available in Hindi, Kannada, and Marathi Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher are three very similar looking flycatchers belonging to the Ficedula genus. Initially, all three were considered to be...
Identifying Paddyfield Pipits
The Paddyfield Pipit is resident across most parts of the country and this is an excellent time of the year to familiarise oneself with the most common pipit of the region.
फ्लाईकैचर की पहचान करना: रेड-ब्रेस्टेड, टैगा और कश्मीर फ्लाईकैचर
रेड-ब्रेस्टेड, टैगा और कश्मीर फ्लाईकैचर तीनो एक जैसे दिखने वाले फ्लाईकैचर हैं। लेकिन इन तीन प्रजातियों के बीच अंतर करना मुश्किल हो सकता है! हालाँकि नर की पहचान करना काफी आसान है परन्तु मादा और पहले शीतकालीन पक्षियों को अलग-अलग बता पाना बेहद मुश्किल है। हालांकि यह आलेख उन प्रमुख विशेषताओं का वर्णन करता है जिससे पहचान करने में मदद मिलती हैं, याद रखें कि पृथक्करण के लिए इनमें से कई विशेषताएँ अपर्याप्त हैं। इन तीन बहुत समान दिखने वाली फ्लाईकैचर को अलग करने के लिए आपको अक्सर कई विशेषताओं के संयोजन पर विचार करने की आवश्यकता होगी।
Identifying Waders: Part 2
This article focusses on the two species of a group of very small shorebirds known as Stints (Calidris sp) - the Little Stint and the Temminck's Stint.
Field Identification of Green and Greenish Warblers
By Ramit Singal Green and Greenish Warblers have always been notoriously difficult to tell apart. Till recently, Green Warbler (P. nitidus) was considered to be a subspecies of the Greenish Warbler (P. trochiloides). Considering the difficulties involved in...
From our partners
Latest news and updates from our many partner groups
