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.
Bushlarks, Skylarks, & Crested Larks
By Ramit Singal Hopefully, you've had some practice over the past month(s) in telling apart larks from pipits. In this article, we'll try and give some tips to tell between 3 different groups of larks and the species within these groups. We'll start with the...
Some tips on vocal identification of Jungle and Rock Bush-Quails in Peninsular India
By Anand Krishnan and Sarthak Malusare Introduction Two Perdicula bush-quails—Jungle Bush-Quail (Perdicula asiatica) and Rock Bush-Quail (Perdicula argoondah), are widespread in Peninsular India in scrub-jungle and grassland habitats. Like many quails, they are...
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...
Cormorants Clarified
By Ramit Singal Ever seen a V-shaped flock of black birds flying purposefully in the sky near a water body? Or a black bird sitting still with its wings spread out in a small village pond? Or a bird's head sticking out of the water at a lake or pond? Did you notice...
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.
Is that a Pipit or a Lark?
By Ramit Singal Few birds are as confusing to the beginning birder as Pipits and Larks. The first step towards identifying the species within the two families is to be able to tell between a pipit and a lark. Here is a short guide to telling apart these confusing...
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...
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.
Identifying Flycatchers: Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher
By Tarun Menon and Ashwin Viswanathan Red-breasted, Taiga and Kashmir Flycatcher are three very similar looking flycatchers belonging to the Ficedula genus. Initially, all three were considered to be sub-species of Red-breasted Flycatcher and molecular data...
From our partners
Latest news and updates from our many partner groups