Great Backyard Bird Count 14-17 February 2014

[BirdCountIndia]

Dear friends,

Here is a notice about GBBC 2014. Could you forward it along to your birding friends? This GBBC promises to be a massive event! As before, we encourage you to take advantage of the GBBC to organize public events so that others in your area can learn about birding. If you do plan something like this, please post a message here so that others can learn from your efforts!

The Facebook event page for GBBC-India 2014 is here
https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/

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

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. India results from 2013 are 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 India 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, people all over India are participating this time! Some of us 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.

While you are welcome to participate independently, do consider joining this Google group:
http://groups.google.com/group/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.

We are also on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/

See you at GBBC 2014!

[BirdCountIndia]

Praveen wrote "This year do we enter via eBIRD or do we enter via http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html ?"

Thanks to Praveen for asking this: it is a point of confusion for many! Just like last year, you can upload your GBBC lists either at www.ebird.org or at www.birdcount.org.

Here is a quote from the website: "If you already use eBird, please continue using eBird to submit your sightings but be sure to enter at least one checklist during the GBBC weekend!"

The difference is that eBird is open all year round, but the BirdCount website only opens up on 14 Feb. The effect is identical, though, so we strongly suggest that you:

(a) set up an account straight away at www.ebird.org (if you don't already have one), and

(b) upload one or more lists well before the GBBC weekend, so that you get used to the eBird platform

Even if you have used eBird before, please do upload some lists in the coming weeks. There are changes for India, some already made, and some underway.

One big change is that you can now set your preferences to see English names that we are more used to in India. If you login and go to preferences, under "Species names display", please select "Both, Common names translated to English (India)".

So, for example, if you take part in the Asian Waterbird Count this month (which we highly recommend!), you can upload those lists and counts to eBird as well as submitting them to the AWC. That way you have a permanent web-based record of what you saw.

If you do upload a list to eBird in the coming weeks, please do post the link on this group, or on the Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/

Thanks, and best wishes for the New Year to all!