April 2018 eBirders of the month

As the temperature rises in most parts of India, April tends to see a further drop in birding activity. Here is the breakup of birding in India in the month of April 2018 (with previous month in brackets):

Number of birders: 1,271 (1,611)
Number of lists (all types): 13,700 (20,600)
Number of observations: 2.3 lakh (3.5 lakh)

April challenge

The challenge for April  was to upload at least 20 complete and stationary, 15 min duration checklists from the same location over 20 different days  (details at the link above). Of the 1,271 eBirders in this month, 18 met the target. These are (excluding group accounts):

Many congratulations to all of them!

One name out of the above was selected using a computer-generated random number. The name is

Regin Ross

who receives a copy of Bird Sense: What it’s like to be a bird, by Tim Birkhead, as a small gift in appreciation.

Since we asked birders to follow a very specific protocol in April, let’s see what meaning can be extracted from the information generated in this way.

Examples of accumulating species counts with repeated surveys at a single location

Now let’s see actual graphs generated from the information uploaded by what our 18 eBirders of the month. These are organized by the number of lists of 15 minutes each, up to a maximum of 50 lists in the month of April. For reasons of privacy, the district names are given instead of the exact locations.

Cumulative species graphs for the April 2018 eBirders of the month

Brown Dipper by Balwant Negi/Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab (view in checklist)

Are you doing your best to match the target for May (birding while documenting breeding evidence)? And there are a whole set of yearlong challenges for 2018!