September sees more of a transition in our birdlife, a transition that starts in July and continues on to November — with more and more species and individuals of migrant birds seeking their winter home in India. Accordingly, September usually sees an uptick in birding activity in the country (although this is not so apparent this year!). Here is the break-up of eBirding in India in Sep 2017 (with previous month in brackets).
Number of birders: 957 (921)
Number of lists (all types): 12,100 (11,800)
Number of observations: 1.78 lakh (1.68 lakh)
September challenge
The challenge for September was to upload at least one birdlist on each day of the month (see the link above for details). Of the 957 eBirders in September, 19 met or exceeded this target. They are (as always, excluding group accounts):
| Aisha Sultana Ajay Gadikar Chirag Munje Elavarasan M Ganeshwar SV Gowthama Poludasu Harshjeet Bal Jayadev Menon Kalaimani Ayuthavel Lakshmikant Neve |
Manju Sinha Murugesh Natesan Praver Mourya Renju TR Sajeev Krishnan Sreekumar Chirukandoth Subramania Siva Vidhya Sundar Vinay Nadig — |
|---|
Many congratulations to all of them!
One of these 19 birders was selected, using a computer-generated random number. That person is
Elavarasan M
who receives a copy of How to be a (bad) birdwatcher by Simon Barnes as a small gift in appreciation.
Gap-filling challenge
The gap-filling challenge for September was to upload a minimum of four eligible checklists from any one or more of the 369 Districts that were represented by less than 30 minutes of eBirding in all previous Septembers. A total of 270 effort-based birdlists of 15 min or longer were uploaded from 62 of the target Districts, by 70 birders. Of these, 13 birders met the target for the gap-filling challenge, and these are listed below, together with names of the districts they uploaded 4 or more lists from):
Abhiram Sankar (KA Raichur)
Anil Arora (RJ Bikaner)
Chandra Sekhar Bandi (AP Krishna)
Karthick VS (BR Nalanda & Patna, MP Rewa, Sidhi & Satna)
Mike Prince (UL Champawat)
Mohinder Singh Jamwal (JK Reasi)
Partap singh (RJ Bikaner)
Praver Mourya (MP Dewas)
Rahul kumar (BR Nalanda & Patna)
Raja Bandi (RJ Bikaner)
Ravi naidu (CT Dakshin Bastar Dantewada)
Shekar Vishvanath (BR Patna)
Shib Shankar Goswami (JH Hazaribagh)
Swetashree Purohit (OR Koraput)
Many thanks to all of them for helping fill eBird gaps in India!
One person from these 13 was chosen using a computer-generated random number to receive a small gift. That person is
who receives a copy of Bird Sense: What it’s like to be a bird, by Tim Birkhead.
Yellow-wattled Lapwing, by Saurabh Agrawal/Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab. From this checklist.
Are you doing your best to match the target for September (at least 15 hrs of birding)? And do keep an eye on the yearlong challenges for 2017!
