The annual Pongal Bird Count, held for the fourth consecutive year is
an opportunity for everyone to observe, learn and appreciate bird life. The
event is part of a worldwide effort to document birds around the globe and to
make bird watching popular and scientific. The event is coordinated by Tamil
Birders Network and Bird Count India. The result of the count will be uploaded
on ebird.org (an online platform for bird watchers to register their
observations in a systematic manner. It is like a bird atlas which through its
created database arrives at birding trends over the years.
The 2018 Pongal Bird Count will be held from January 13 to 17. Birders
from all over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will document bird species and count
their numbers for at least 15 minutes each day and thereafter upload the
observations. Through this Pongal Bird Count, growth and distribution of bird
species, migratory and behaviour patterns will be assessed. In addition this
count will help spread awareness towards bird conservation.
Pongal Bird Count was started in 2015. In the 2017 Pongal Bird Count,
birders from all over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, participated. Out of 1741
lists submitted, most were from Coimbatore, Pudukkottai, Kancheepuram,
Thanjavur and Tiruvannamalai (top five districts).
House Crow was the most common resident bird appearing in 53.8% of all
the checklists, followed by Common Myna (53%), Black Drongo (45%), Large-billed
Crow (41%) and Indian Pond-Heron (39%). The most common migrant appearing in
31.2% of the check-lists was Barn Swallow followed by Blue-tailed Bee-eater
(25%), Blyth’s Reed-Warbler (21%), Rosy Starling (13%) and Common Sandpiper
(12%).
Various resource materials are available at on how to prepare bird
checklists in eBird, online pictorial guide to some common birds of Tamil Nadu
and Introduction to birds and birdwatching. These resources are available in
both English and Tamil. For more details go to this link here.
