GBBC weekend coming up!
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BirdCountIndia
Jan 31, 2014, 1:44:51 AM1/31/14
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Dear friends,
Just a reminder that 14-17 Feb is the weekend when the Great Backyard Bird Count happens. All checklists submitted to eBird during those days count towards the total, so do upload your sightings from 14-17th.
If you haven't used eBird before, please take a look at this Beginner's Guide to eBird that we have put together: http://bit.ly/1eIicDK. After that, do upload a couple of checklists to get used to the platform.
If you have a smartphone, download BirdLog Asia to submit your lists directly to your eBird account. BirdLog Asia is free for download until the end of the GBBC, and is available for iPhone and Android. More information here: http://bit.ly/1b9xcZ4
Apart from individual birders and families taking part in the GBBC, groups across India are organizing birding events for school children, colleges, beginning birders, and the general public. If you plan to take advantage of the GBBC to organize an event to promote birds and birding, do write and let us all know!
If you know others who might be interested in the GBBC this year, do forward this message to them and ask them to sign up for this google group and take a look at the Facebook event page for GBBC-India https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/
More details about GBBC 2014 are pasted below.
Happy birding!
Bird Count India
https://www.facebook.com/birdcount.india
https://twitter.com/birdcountindia
Just a reminder that 14-17 Feb is the weekend when the Great Backyard Bird Count happens. All checklists submitted to eBird during those days count towards the total, so do upload your sightings from 14-17th.
If you haven't used eBird before, please take a look at this Beginner's Guide to eBird that we have put together: http://bit.ly/1eIicDK. After that, do upload a couple of checklists to get used to the platform.
If you have a smartphone, download BirdLog Asia to submit your lists directly to your eBird account. BirdLog Asia is free for download until the end of the GBBC, and is available for iPhone and Android. More information here: http://bit.ly/1b9xcZ4
Apart from individual birders and families taking part in the GBBC, groups across India are organizing birding events for school children, colleges, beginning birders, and the general public. If you plan to take advantage of the GBBC to organize an event to promote birds and birding, do write and let us all know!
If you know others who might be interested in the GBBC this year, do forward this message to them and ask them to sign up for this google group and take a look at the Facebook event page for GBBC-India https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/
More details about GBBC 2014 are pasted below.
Happy birding!
Bird Count India
https://www.facebook.com/birdcount.india
https://twitter.com/birdcountindia
--------------------------------------------------
The Great Backyard Bird Count--India is back! The dates are 14-17 February 2014. Join in this global birding event.
--Resources--
Beginner's guide to eBird: http://bit.ly/1eIicDK
Smartphone app for eBird: http://bit.ly/1b9xcZ4 (for iPhone and andriod; 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 and the India results here.
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.
You can also join us for updates on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/
The Great Backyard Bird Count--India is back! The dates are 14-17 February 2014. Join in this global birding event.
--Resources--
Beginner's guide to eBird: http://bit.ly/1eIicDK
Smartphone app for eBird: http://bit.ly/1b9xcZ4 (for iPhone and andriod; 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 and the India results here.
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.
You can also join us for updates on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/449287601838394/
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