How long do birds live?

Surprisingly, this simple question is quite a difficult one to answer. Ornithologists usually ring or band the birds in the wild and collect them again using mistnets. Using the data they gather over a period of time, they try to estimate the life-span of the birds. This sort of bird life estimation studies have only been carried out in the last thirty years and it has been observed that some sea birds have survived throughout so their life spans are yet to be estimated.

From the data gathered so far, it appears that that the average life span is far lesser than the maximum life span of any one bird. for example, Robins have an average life span of 1.1 years but few birds have survived up to 20 years in the wild. Very few birds actually die of old age and a vast majority of the birds perish during the first few days of their lives.

In general, it has been observed that larger birds have longer lives compared to smaller ones. The birds living in tropics live longer compared to the birds living in temperate zones. It has also been observed that sea birds in general live longer than land living birds. Birds kept in captivity are also observed to have a longer life span compared to birds living in the wild. These generalisations are ofcourse are not without exceptions.


Reference:
Bird Life Expectancy: http://twootz.com/article/Bird-Life-Expectancy
Life span of birds: http://www.countrysideinfo.co.uk/bird_lifespan.htm
How long can birds live: http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/How_Long.html

Why are birds important?

For a conservation point of view, it is important to understand why birds are important in order to understand why it is imperative to conserve and protect them.

Birds are important for the following reasons:

1. They help propagate tress, shrubs and plants by distributing pollen and seeds
2. They keep in check insect & rodent populations which plunder agricultural crops (Locusts are kept in check by starlings. Rats and mice populations are kept in check by hawks and owls)
3. They keep the countryside clear of debris and also of carcasses by scavenging on them (Crows and vultures)
4. They are a valuable source of fertilizer (Fish eating birds produce a fertilizer called 'Guano' which is very valuable)
5. Birds have an aesthetic value
6. They act as gauges of the pollution levels in our water bodies.
7. The study of birds and their flight has lead to the discovery of Aeroplanes and helicopters

My thoughts on Bird watching

I have been bird-watching since the last few weeks and I feel I should share my thoughts on the same to a general reader. I went for the first bird watching session (On December 1st 2013) and when I returned I was quite bewildered and couldn't understand the point of the whole exercise. Frankly, I couldn't understand what made people come and do bird watching again. I had previously purchased a book "Birds of Kerala" by Salim Ali. I tried to read about the birds that we looked at in the bird watching session. However, it was not until I saw the documentary series "Life of birds" By David Attenbrough, did I realise the range of diversity that the birds and how they adapted themselves to various environments. I joined the facebook group of Coimbatore nature society and began following the posts of the various members. I became busy with my own personal life as my daughter was born on December 17th. I went with my friends on a trip to Wyanad armed with my Salim ali book and also another book by Anand Banerjee (A field guide of beginners, Common birds of India) which basically listed the commonly seen species of India.

I began to appreciate the birds and really began to enjoy bird watching. Every time, I sighted a new species, it was a moment of ecstasy. I was also able to feel very stress relieved and felt that watching birds helped me communicate with nature and Nature started revealing its secrets to me. It is the closest I have come to mediation. I am reminded of something a friend told me long ago. He said, when you listen to music, you will be able to enjoy it if it sounds good. But when you know the different musical instruments and you have studied about songs, you will be able to enjoy music at several different levels. I feel the same thing applies to life and about birds. You can live your entire lives not knowing about birds but if  you knew a little bit about them, you will enjoy life a bit more.

Once I started watching birds, I started to notice that there were a lot of species in my own back yard that I had never noticed before. I also started accumulating books about birds. The most enjoyable books I have read are those which didn't just described or helped in identifying birds but those which gave intimate portrayals of birds and how they related to man (About Indian birds by Salim Ali and Laeeq Fatehally) These books really helped me appreciate birds much better.

Unfortunately though, a vast majority of the bird watchers are content with looking at birds and knowing very little about them. Well, if they knew a little more, their observations will bring even greater happiness. However, as a novice myself, I feel, I have no right to pass judgement on others. I just have to learn to accept that each persons journey is unique and beautiful in its own way.

My Pinterest link on birdwatching

I have a pinterest account and I feel it is in someway a better way to organise information instead of organising it in lists as blogs normally do. Pinterest is the online equivalent of a scrap book of yester- years and the best thing is that you can add interesting news articles and you can share it with others instantly.

I have collected an assorted variety of newspaper articles which are related to bird watching and birds and I hope it is of some interest to you.

Here it is:
http://www.pinterest.com/pbblj/bird-watching/

Great Backyard bird count Feb 14-17th

The Great Back Yard Bird count is a annual event conducted by Cornell university of US. This event helps the scientists and ornithologists study the bird population. Though the GBBC is part of US tradition annually, this is the second year it has been made as a global event. It is extremely interesting to see India embracing this event so enthusiastically. This year India submitted in total 2419 bird lists. This is almost five times greater than 2013 lists. In 2013, India submitted some 460 lists. Tamilnadu topped the number of species sighted and Kerala topped in the number of lists submitted. However, several states did not have a single list submitted and even in the states where lists were submitted, some states had very few lists submitted. Lot of work needs to be done in this front. I participated in the same and submitted 2 lists with my sightings in Palladam Puliampatti and in Udumalpet. I sighted atleast four different lifers during GBBS: Brahminy starling, Whitebrowed wagtail, white wagtail and Tawny bellied babler.


Details of the event are given below:

The Great Backyard Bird Count--India is back! The dates are 14-17 February 2014. Join in this global birding event.

--Resources--
[New!] GBBC-India webpage: http://www.birdcount.in/events/gbbc/
Beginner's guide to eBird: http://bit.ly/1eIicDK...
Smartphone app for eBird: http://bit.ly/1b9xcZ4 (BirdLog Asia, free until 17 Feb)
--

WHAT
GBBC is a worldwide event. Last year birders from 111 countries took part, counting around 35 million individual birds of 4,000 species. Indian birders submitted 400+ lists of 500+ species. You can see a summary of the global results here
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/science-stories/2013summary
and the India results here
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwpQkYOLo9ZdcjFKZXEtMmhLVlk/edit?usp=sharing

WHY
Most importantly, it's fun! More seriously, these annual snapshots of bird populations help to answer a variety of important questions, including how birds are affected by habitat changes and weather, and whether populations and distributions are changing. More details are here: www.birdsource.org/gbbc/whycount.html

WHEN
Any or all days between 14 and 17 February 2014

HOW
Go birding for at least 15 min, listing all the species you see, with rough count of each. It doesn't matter if you can't identify every single species -- what you can identify is good enough! Login to www.ebird.org and submit your species list.

More details at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html

In brief:
1. Go to www.ebird.org and create an account (Do familiarise yourself).
2. Select your location on a map.
3. Choose kind of count you have made (e.g. travelling or stationary).
4. Give start time and duration.
5. Enter your list.
6. Share your list with others via email, Facebook or Twitter. Some examples of lists from 2013 are here:
http://ebird.org/ebird/gbbc/view/checklist?subID=S13006470
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S13006074
http://ebird.org/ebird/gbbc/view/checklist?subID=S12979749

As in 2013, this year again people all over India are participating. Some are also organizing small events at local parks or lakes for the public, including children, to take part in the count and learn more about birds.

If you are feeling ambitious, your local birder/naturalist group could use GBBC to carry out a more formal project. For example, you could ask "what is the importance of green/open spaces for urban birds?" To answer this, one could organise groups to go out and generate one set of lists from open/green spaces (eg, wetlands, parks); and another set of lists from from other kinds of city habitats: commercial areas, residential areas -- basically, highly built-up areas. Then one could ask how many and which species are restricted to open/green spaces, and how many appear to be adaptable and occur also in other city habitats. A possible conclusion could be "Green spaces are essential for the survival of 60% of [your city's] birds". With some planning and enough birders, such a project would be possible to do in the four days of the GBBC.

Regardless of what you plan, do consider joining this Google group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/birdcountindia
which exists so that we can keep each other informed of our plans, as well share what we see with fellow birders during the days of the Count.

But, of course, you don't need to join this group to participate. Details given here are enough!

Birding & More at SACON on 23/02/14

Today was a eventful day starting with a jungle trek inside the Salim Ali Center for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON for short). This was a eventful trek where we sighted quite a few birds. Some of the birds we sighted were sighted for the first time in my life. The entire group put together sighted some 51 species but many escaped my attention some possibly because of my preoccupation with my camera.

I was able to see a Paradise fantail flycatcher (white morph) male. What a sight it was! I wonder how the bird managed to develop such a long tail. I also wonder if the tail never gets entangled in the canopy while it is trying to catch flies. The cuckoo shrike, Malabar Parakeet, white browed bulbul, Jerdon's bushlark, hill myna were also beautiful birds which I am seeing for the first time.

The trek was followed by a basic breakfast by CNS members. I reminded myself that I should contribute for the breakfast next time. The breakfast was followed by a excellent presentation by Mr Jayapal on Taxonomy and the changes that are happening. This was a very informative lecture and it served to remind me of the things I needed to focus on in the future.

The trek was followed by a movie screening on Natural history "Tiger Dynasty" it was a movie about reintroduction of tigers at Siriska National park in Rajasthan after a period of four years where there were no tigers. (The last tigers were poached) It was a wonderful documentary and I recommend it highly to all natural history enthusiasts.



Birds sighted:

1. Paradise fan tail flycatcher (Life)
2. White browed bulbul (Life)
3. Red-vented bulbul
4. Red-whiskered bulbul
5. Cuckoo shrike (Life)
6. Jerdon's bushlark
7. Green bee-eater
8. Chestnut headed bee-eater
9. Jerdon's bushlark (Life)
10. Common Iora
11. Spotted owlet
12. Hill myna (Life)
13. Common myna
14. Black shouldered kite
15. Jungle crow
16. Greenish leaf warbler
17. Indian Peafowl
18. Malabar parakeet (Life)
19. Yellow beaked babler
20. Tawny bellied warbler /babler
21. Indian Robin
22. Pied bushchat
23. Small minivet

Cuckoo shrike

Hill myna

Jerdon's bushlark

Malabar Parakeet

Paradise flycatcher (Male)

Spotted Dove

Spotted owlet

white browed bulbul

My initiation into bird watching

Friends, my journey into bird watching really started on a Sunday on December 1st 2013. I am a member of an organisation called Young Indians and there are several platforms of Young Indians. Environment happens to be one of them.  The  Chair of Environment platform of Young Indians is a genial person by name Manoj Rajagopal and he organised a joint event with Coimbatore Nature Society. We were asked to come to Perur for an early morning bird watching session at the Perur lake called Puttuviki. I went to the event not knowing what to expect and I decided to go to the event with an open mind. The group that we went bird watching was also a very humble and a welcoming group. I immediately felt inadequate as I did not have any equipment to spot birds with. I quickly realised that the binocular is a bare essential for bird watching. With borrowed equipment we managed to sight the following birds:  We spotted several birds like Cattle egret, Lake egret, Median egret, Heron, Pelican, Painted stork, Spoon bill, Glossy ibis, Black headed ibis, Spotted billed duck, Kingfishers, Green bee eaters, Wigeons, Swifts, swallows, Grebes, River Tern, Oriental Darters, Wood peckers, purple lake hen, Common lake hen, Pin tailed ducks, Cormorants and several other varieties. Never knew we were missing so much right. It was a Sunday morning well spent. Looking forward for the next expedition.

Birds of Palladam Puliampatti

Now, you may ask, what informative purpose does the birds of P.Puliampatti serve to the general reader. It may help people of P.Puliampatti but how does it help bird watcher’s in other localities?, I hear you say. Well, P.Puliampatti is a quaint Village located about 38 Kms from Coimbatore and about 32 Kms from Tiruppur. There is some agriculture activity in the village with some farms dedicated to vegetable and grain crops. It is doted sparsely with coconut groves. It is far from an idyllic village with very scant rainfall and more fields are getting abandoned because of shortage of water and agricultural labour. For all practical purposes, it can be classified as a dry scrubland but even in this seemingly desolate village, there is a thriving bird population. I will just list down the bird species that I have located so that the birders everywhere can take solace in the fact that birds are everywhere and it is up to us to locate them. The below list is by no means complete and I have excluded several species which I could not identify conclusively.
1.       House Crow
2.       House Sparrow
3.       Common Myna
4.       Common Hoopoe
5.       Common Iora
6.       Asian koel
7.       Purple sunbird
8.       Purple rumped sunbird
9.       Indian robin
10.   Pied bushchat
11.   White headed babbler
12.   Black drongo
13.   Red vented bulbul
14.   White browed wag tail
15.   Indian silverbill
16.   Brahminy starling
17.   Little green bee-eater
18.   Southern coucal
19.   Cattle egret
20.   Indian Pond heron
21.   Indian bushlark
22.   Indian peafowl
23.   Barn swallow
24.   Asian Palm swift
25.   Asian paradise flycatcher
26.   Rufous treepie
27.   Jungle crow
28.   Bay back shrike
29.   Indian courser
30.   Black drongo
31.   Shikra
32.   Black kite
33.   Indian roller
34.   Rock pigeon
35.   Eurasian collared dove
36.   Laughing dove
37.   Spotted owlet
38.   Black-rumped Flameback woodpecker
39.   Rose ringed parakeet
40.   Indian courser
 
List appended on 04/09/2014

41. Spotted dove
42. Common woodshrike
43. Grey Frankolin
44. Common Iora
45. Grey Francolin
46. Blue faced malkoha
47. Jacobian Cuckoo / Pied crested cuckoo
48. Ashy Crowned sparrowlark
49.White browed wagtail
50. Red Wattled lapwing
51. Yellow wattled lapwing
52.  White throated kingfisher