On 14 May this year, 424 birders from India, Nepal, and Bhutan accumulated 1,150 checklists and recorded 626 species on the day of the first-ever HIMALAYAN BIRD COUNT.
Bird Conservation Nepal (@birdlifenepal), Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, Bhutan (@rspnbhutan) and Bird Count India (@birdcountindia) coordinated at national level.
Within India, a number of groups, incl. Arunachal Pradesh Birding Club..
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.. , Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, multiple groups in Jammu & Kashmir, Wildlife Conservation and Birds Club of Ladakh, Doon Nature Walks,and Titli Trust worked across the Himalayan landscape to make this happen.
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This map shows (in yellow dots) the locations from where birders uploaded their lists to the eBird platform (@Team_eBird).
1. Conservation is not only about saving threatened species; it is also about keeping common birds common! But how do we do this without knowing how common species are faring?
Two years ago on this day (17 Feb), the State of India's Birds (SoIB) reported on precisely this.
2. Using millions of reports contributed by Indian birdwatchers to the eBird platform, SoIB 2020 examined trends in reporting rates (an index of abundance) over 25+ years. This is the only assessment of the majority (867 species) of India's birds. The results were eye-opening!
3. Some species are doing well. For example, our National Bird, the Indian Peafowl, is clearly increasing in abundance and spreading into new places.
The 10th Indian edition of the global Great Backyard Bird Count starts on Friday! The #GBBC is a 4-day event (18-21 Feb) to celebrate our birds by documenting them across the country. Just look for birds as often as you can, and upload your lists to eBird. birdcount.in/event/gbbc/
Last year (2021), 2954 birders in India uploaded 31,355 lists during the GBBC, clocking nearly 17,000 hours of birding & recording 965 species – 72 % of the total number of species known to occur in the country! birdcount.in/gbbc2021result…
Can we cross 1,000 species this year?
Great Backyard Bird Count and Campus Bird Count in #Meghalaya