For the sixth year in succession, a two day workshop on Bird Monitoring in Kerala was held at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur on 8-9 June 2019. About 70 birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts, representing various organisations in Kerala participated in the workshop. Participants represented Cochin Natural History Society (CNHS), Malabar Natural History Society (MNHS),… read more »
2 Sharad Apte is one of the pioneers of bird sound recording in India. Here, he shares his passion for birds and their vocalisations. 1. Please tell us bit about yourself. What do you do and where do you live? I live in Sangli in south Maharashtra, 45 km east of Kolhapur and 240 km in south of Pune. I was… read more »
Birder Profile: Sharad Apte
Bird watchers may have taken refuge in the cooler interiors of their homes during the hot month of May but a number of resident birds went about their business of breeding in the heat. In many parts of India, June can still be hot but not for long. Dark clouds will start to roll in, followed by reverberating thunder announcing… read more »
June 2019 eBirding Challenge
April is an interesting month for birding. Many remaining winter migrants are on their way back, and breeding activity is widespread among residents and summer visitors. Here is the breakup of eBirding in the country in April 2019 (with previous month in brackets): Number of birders: 1,746 (2,227)Number of lists (all types): 17,000 (24,000)Number of observations: 3.00 lakh (4.33 lakh)… read more »
April 2019 eBirders of the month
3 Note: some of the animations in this post are large files, and may take a few minutes to load. Bird migration is one of nature’s great wonders. But despite a long history of research on migration, there is still much to learn! In this article, let’s take the opportunity to explore how birdwatchers have helped better understand migration of Indian… read more »
Birders documenting bird migration
Parvez Shagoo is from the district of Baramulla, situated along the banks of Jhelum river. After doing his post-graduation in forestry, he joined the forest services and now works as a Forest Officer in one of the most picturesque regions of India – Jammu. Let’s take a look at what inspired Parvez to start birding and what continues to motivate… read more »
Birder Profile: Parvez Shagoo
Thank you to everyone who participated in our Crossword Quiz this year! The energy and interest in this crossword has been extraordinary! We were overwhelmed by record number of participants and want to thank every single one of you for your participation and time. We hope you all learned from it and enjoyed participating in it as much as we… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Answers to Crossword Puzzle
2 Have you ever seen a female Barred Buttonquail fighting with another female, to defend her mate? Have you ever seen how babblers react in the presence of a brood parasitic cuckoo? Or how males in many species provide nutrients to a female, as pre-copulatory food offerings? If such things intrigue you then this is the time of the year where… read more »
May 2019 eBirding Challenge
This brings us to the end of the 2019 endemic bird day quizzes. Congratulations to the 35 folks who got the quiz 5 right. Congratulations to the following 35 who got it correct: Vidhya Sundar, Hareesha AS, Regin Ross, Yogesh Parashar, Harshjeet Singh Bal, Maxim Rodrigues K, Mahathi Narayanaswamy, Tushar Agarwal, Ashok Agarwal, Yogeswarie Sreedharan, Vidhya Swaminathan, Selvaganesh K, Malyasri… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Crossword Puzzle
We are just two more days away from the Endemic Bird Day 2019. Do not forget to go birding on the day and look for residents and endemics around your birding patch or wherever you are! Congratulations to the 32 participants who managed to get all 5 species correct. Yogesh Parashar, Yogesh B, Malyasri Bhattacharya, Shuchismita Das, Mahathi Narayanaswamy, Vibhav peri, Ramesh… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Quiz 5
We are just 3 days away from the actual Endemic Bird Day event and there are two more quizzes to go. Before we move to Quiz 4, let’s see how many of you got the answer to the 3rd quiz right. 25 out of 29 birders got the answers correct! Thank you and congratulations to them! Viral Joshi, Malyasri Bhattacharya, Bhagyashree Kulkarni,… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Quiz 4
We are glad to announce that 27 respondents out of 45 were able to give the correct answer to Bird Quiz 2. Congratulations to Yogesh Parashar, Chetna Sharma, Amitayu Dey, Dhyey Shah, Regin Ross, Pradnyavant Mane, Viral joshi, Subhadra Devi, Harshjeet Singh Bal, Mahathi Narayanaswamy , Selvaganesh K, Maxim Rodrigues K, Nimish Anil, Pravar mourya, Bhagyashree kulkarni , Amber Okas,… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Quiz 3
Thank you for the great response to the first quiz. A whopping 69% of the 49 responders got it right. Congratulations to them! Kavi Nanda, Melvin Jaison, Akshay Shinde, Viral Joshi, Kiranmayee K, Dhyey Shah, Amitayu Dey, Pravar mourya, Malyasri Bhattacharya, Steffin Babu, Sheena S, Vidhya Sundar, Vinay K L, Mahathi, Shuchismita Das, Ashwini Bhatt, Maxim Rodrigues K, Anu Rajagopal,… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019- Quiz 2
We are just a week away for the the Endemic Bird Day which is on 4 May 2019. In the run-up to the event, we will be posting few quiz questions about birds that are endemics/ near endemics to our Indian subcontinent. You get 24 hours to answer each quiz before moving to the next one. Do have a look… read more »
Endemic Bird Day 2019: Quiz 1
Somoyita Sur is a road ecologist and an eBirder based in Guwahati, Assam. Her favorite place to watch birds is from her terrace and balcony. Here is more about Somoyita and how she started her journey in bird watching… 1. Please tell us a bit about yourself. What do you do and where do you live? I am a doctoral… read more »
Birder Profile: Somoyita Sur
Birding activity in India usually drops from February (with the GBBC) to March, and this year was no different. Here is the breakup of eBirding in the country in March 2019 (with previous month in brackets): Number of birders: 2,227 (2,916)Number of lists (all types): 24,000 (47,800)Number of observations: 4.33 lakh (6.94 lakh) March challenge The challenge for March was… read more »
March 2019 eBirders of the month
The Great Backyard Bird Count and Campus Bird Count 2019 results are now live and can be viewed here. 1,786 birders in India submitted 22,273 lists, spent a total of 10,764 person-hours birding and recorded 852 species— 65% of the total number of species known to occur in the country! India stood third in the world, in terms of number… read more »
GBBC 2019 Results
There were 1786 participants across the country in this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count and Campus Bird Count. From bird walks to campus talks to bird talks, a lot of planning and enthusiasm went into many of the events. Several people, young and old were introduced to birds and birdwatching. Here are some of the stories by people across the… read more »