More bird species spotted this year at Big Bird Day
NEW DELHI:
Big Bird Day 2018 — an annual event dedicated to bird watching and counting — held on Sunday showed some ‘encouraging trends’ as number of birds and their species counted at the event was higher than last year, said birders.
Some species like the mallard, grey-headed lapwing and ferruginous pochard which are not commonly seen in Delhi, were spotted in the city’s biodiversity parks. Birders attenting the daylong event believed that number of bird species could go up this year.
“It was an excellent day and we have got some encouraging trends. The number of species and bird count seems to have increased over last one year. We will be able to give the exact figures after two to three days once the findings are collated,” said Nikhil Devasar, founder of birding group Delhibird.
The first Big Bird Day was organised in February 2004 by Delhibird. That year, the event was restricted to Delhi and birders recorded around 236 species of birds across Delhi.
In 2013, the event became national with over 160 teams comprising over 1,000 birders coming together to celebrate the first pan India Big Bird Day.
In 2017, the event attracted six international teams, including those from Singapore and Dubai, also participated in the event. Around 378 bird species from across India were recorded that year.
“This year we had around 38 teams each comprising 10-50 participants who scanned around 20 places in and around Delhi including the city’s biodiversity parks, Basai wetlands, Sultanpur, Kalesar National Park and Dighal, among others,” he said.
Nearly all biodiversity parks of Delhi registered an increase in the number of bird species as compared to last year’s Big Bird Day, bird experts said. The species count has nearly doubled in Tughlaqabad Biodiversity Park and the newly opened Tilpath Valley Biodiversity Park.
While the number of species recorded at Tughlaqabad Biodiversity Park more than doubled from 26 in 2017 to 53 this year, in Tilpath Valley Biodiversity Park the number of species shot up from 26 to 42. In Yamuna Biodiversity Park, the species count increased from 103 to 104.
The Kamla Nehru Ridge registered a decline from 55 species in 2017 to 45 this year.
“The species count may fluctuate. But the most interesting part was to spot some species which are uncommon in Delhi,” said Faiyaz A Khudsar, scientistin-charge of Yamuna Biodiversity Park.
“The mallard, which had almost vanished from t he Yamuna Biodiversity Park, was spotted this year after a gap of almost 12 years. The number of ferruginous pochards in the park also shot up from around 2-3 in the last few years to around 40 this time,” he said.