SURVEY: February 16, 2014 marked an eventful Sunday for birders all over the Indian sub-continent when they celebrated the Big Bird Day. The 468 teams participating in the annual event this year (as compared to last year’s 168 teams) recorded 787 species of birds which accounts for 65 percent of the bird diversity in India.
The results were announced on Saturday February 22nd in Delhi.
The event, Big Bird Day was organised across the country and had around 3000 birders keenly looking out for variety of birds in their neighbourhood. Most numbers of bird watchers were from the state of Maharashtra with West Bengal a close second.
Hostile weather conditions in the eastern parts of the country proved to be a deterrent for birding activities. Yet Assam recorded the most number of species, followed by West Bengal and Uttarakhand. In the national capital region too despite inclement weather and heavy fog, 26 teams participated and documented 206 species of birds.
Birder and organiser of the Big Bird Day said, “Unfortunately, the weather conditions in east India proved to be a damper on birding activities in the region. Despite that, Assam led with the largest number of species seen at 399, followed by West Bengal at 312 and Uttarakhand at 306. Delhi NCR reported a total of 206 species sighted, a drop from 222 recorded in 2013.”
The Event
Big Bird Day was initially started by the Delhi Bird group (created by Nikhil Devasar and Bikram Grewal) as an informal event held in February or March. The first Big Bird Day was held on February 22, 2004 when 236 species of birds were recorded across Delhi.
Every year since then self-organised volunteer birders under the guidance of chosen group leader(s) cover the fields and wetlands from early morning until late in the day to spot bird species. Over the years, the data collected have revealed the changing trends in habitat condition, bird diversity, migration and related ecological issues.
In subsequent years, volunteers from more places have started their own Big Bird Day count. Since 2012 the event has had participation from other countries too turning it into an international event.
This year’s event had six teams of birders from Pakistan participating for the first time. Teams from Spain, Dubai and the US also took part. This was also the first time that EBird, a software was used for collecting and organising data.
“Last year, it was slightly adhoc so we tried to make it much more organized this time by urging everyone to submit their results on EBird that can compute the results accurately,” said birder and co-organizer of the exercise, Bikram Grewal.
Devasar said that though not many rare birds were seen, a huge diversity was observed.
The organisers hope that Big Bird Day becomes the definitive national bird watching and independent survey event in India, creating a nationally significant repository for avian information in the subcontinent.
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Image via cc/Flick by Karunakar Rayker and Archit Ratan
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