This is a generic protocol that can be used for conducting bird surveys in large forested landscapes of peninsular India; where sampling certain basecamps in a systematic manner is required and the results can be analysed using administrative boundaries of the forest like forest ranges.
Preamble: A forest bird survey protocol in the Western and Eastern Ghats is designed with twin objectives.
- An equal effort sampling across a free selection of walk paths.
- An unequal effort listing of species in each forest range.
Protocol:
- Every team of 2-5 members is assigned a basecamp for their two day sampling, to be completed typically in four sessions – 0600hrs-1000hrs/ 0700hrs-1100hrs and 1500hrs-1700hrs/ 1600hrs-1800hs on each day.
- Teams will choose an existing path that can run sufficiently long (roughly 4km) to complete the transect. It is okay to choose a round-trip transect as well.
- The team walks along the path and conducts birding for 4 hrs in the morning and 2 hrs in the afternoon, in bursts of 15 minutes, noting every species and numbers, creating complete checklists.
- Team is expected to enter the bird data into eBird using the mobile app then and there, or use an offline list and upload later. Kindly avoid choosing the hotspot when submitting the checklist and instead choose the auto-selected location for submitting each of your checklists.
- After the allotted transect hours, the team is free to walk around birding in any existing forest path and conduct more bird-watching for the rest of the morning and also afternoon. However, the entire birding time should be submitted as 15 minute complete lists in eBird.
- Primary focus of the team should be to provide 4*4 + 4*2 = twenty four 15 minute complete checklists for their day’s birding.
- Each team should spend about 30 minutes listening to nocturnal calls and enter them as two 15 minute complete lists, preferably from twilight. Zero species lists can be entered if no calls were heard.
- If some birds are seen outside birding hours, or while on the way to camp or while having lunch etc, they can be entered as incidental lists in eBird.
- At the end of the survey, all teams should share their eBird checklist with the designated eBird group account ID (example: xyzbirdsurvey).
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Header Image: Ultramarine Flycatcher Ficedula superciliaris by Albin Jacob / Macaulay Library
