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/
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/
and the India results here
https://docs.google.com/
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/
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/
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/
http://ebird.org/ebird/
http://ebird.org/ebird/
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/
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!
--Resources--
[New!] GBBC-India webpage: http://www.birdcount.in/
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/
and the India results here
https://docs.google.com/
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/
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/
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/
http://ebird.org/ebird/
http://ebird.org/ebird/
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/
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!
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