Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) 2017 at WII


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Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is a popular citizen science event which collects valuable information pertaining to distribution and abundance of birds across the globe.  Events like these demonstrate the power of engaging citizens in learning about the natural world and monitoring how it is changing. WII along with 289 other campuses (including research stations, government institutions, schools, colleges, universities and corporate offices etc.) across India participated in the count carried over 4 days from 17-20 February, 2017. As part of the count, birders in WII were grouped into 4 teams and they surveyed in and around the WII campus. In order to increase the efficiency of the coverage area the campus was divided into subareas like Hostel & Nature trail, Admin Block and Faculty Residential colony, Sal patch near WII and IIIrd block residential colony covering the following habitats: Moist-deciduous Siwalik Sal forest, Open wooded compounds/ gardens/parks, Shrub jungle with thickets of Lantana and young Sal, Open scrubland with fallow/barren crop-fields and Wetlands. Altogether 4862 individuals of 146 species were recorded during the campus bird count period. Among them 30 individuals of 8 species i.e. warbler sp., Swallow sp., Swift sp. etc. were unidentified. Birds like Rose-ringed parakeet, Indian Spot-billed duck, Jungle babbler and Red-vented bulbul were the most seen birds, and total 25 bird species were recorded only once during the count including Eurasian wryneck, Himalayan buzzard, White-tailed rubythroat, Himalayan flameback etc.

The GBBC at WII was coordinated by Dr. Gopi G V, Scientist E. A total of 37 people participated in the campus bird count team which were divided in to four groups and these four groups were coordinated by the following team co-ordinators: Sudip Banerjee, Sumit Arya, Anant Pandey, Suresh Rana, Ankita Sinha, Shuvendu Das, Upma Manral, Dinesh Singh Pundir and Deepak Brid.

Apart from the Campus Bird Count, a field day was organized on 19 Feb 2017 to introduce birds and bird watching to the kids in WII campus. Several kids participated enthusiastically and they were taken for guided birding around the campus. A checklist of 15 birds was prepared at the end of the count by the kids.

More information about the GBBC, Campus Bird Count, and other associated events can be found at http://gbbc.birdcount.org/, http://www.birdcount.in/ and http://ebird.org/  . The global GBBC event is organized by Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society and this is the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time.