Meet the Birders Who Popularized the Great Backyard Bird Count in India

Since the Great Backyard Bird Count first became available outside the US and Canada in 2013, it has been interesting to see which countries have embraced the census the most. So far, the biggest adopter is India, which was third in total number of checklists in 2013 and 2014, with a whopping 3,358 checklists during last year’s count. Not only are Indian birders submitting a lot of checklists, they are reporting many species! Six Indian states made it into the top ten species counts for states and provinces, joining California, Texas, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and Queensland, Australia, as the birdiest states and provinces during the GBBC.

For more insight into how and why the GBBC is growing in India, we talked to India eBird reviewers and GBBC promoters Suhel and Praveen.

How did you first get involved with eBird and the GBBC?

Suhel: My colleagues and I have been running a data collection project on birds in India called MigrantWatch since 2007. This is a rather simple project and, late in 2012, we were exploring larger platforms for bird listing when we saw that eBird had gone global. That was followed by a fortuitous meeting with Steve Kelling of eBird, who visited India in January 2013. Those discussions made us decide that we'd work towards bringing eBird to Indian birders.

Praveen: Suhel got involved first—and then I found eBird had features which were missing in other databases with which I had worked/partnered. Hence, there was no reticence in adoption.

What made you want to promote the GBBC?

Suhel: The global nature of the GBBC makes it a great opportunity to motivate birders to get together and count birds over the same weekend; and also to generate some 'buzz' among non-birders. So for us in India it has a very important and effective outreach goal.

Is birdwatching a popular hobby in India?

Suhel: Considering the size of our population, not really! But it's certainly growing very rapidly. Most people who look at birds are primarily interested in taking photographs. Our aim is to try and encourage birders of all stripes to be a little more rigorous and systematic and in their birding—and to demonstrate that this is fun too!

What makes birding in India unique? Any favorite birds?

Suhel: Well, there are several global biodiversity hotspots in our borders, including the Eastern Himalayas and the Western Ghats—and we have a pretty large number of endemics. Praveen will know exactly how many (depending on which taxonomy you follow). And even with a long history of ornithological work in the subcontinent, there are a number of regions that are underexplored and under-birded, which means that it's not unlikely that a keen birder will make new discoveries about the occurrence and distribution of our bird species!

Praveen: I will let the numbers pass as these differ quite a bit based on taxonomies. India is quite diverse in birds. While Eastern Himalayas & Western Ghats are two of the hottest of the hotspots with endemic species, we do get Palearctic and Tibetan species in Ladakh, desert species in the Rann of Kutch and Thar desert, montane species all along the Himalayas, waders all along the coasts, several south-east Asian species in northeastern India, several island endemics in Andaman & Nicobar Island, littoral forest species in pockets along the eastern Indian coasts and a decent collection of sea birds off Arabian Sea & Bay of Bengal.

My favourite birds include a very common one—the Baya Weaver (the males of which build a spectacular nest) and a very rare one—the Great Indian Bustard (an endemic on the verge of extinction).

What are some of your favorite places to find birds?

Suhel: Gosh, hard to say. Praveen, do you want to answer this one?

Praveen: Eaglenest in the eastern Himalayas is an unforgettable place and would rank quite high for me. I am sure it will be the same for quite a few people in India.

Has the participation in the GBBC been largely from urban, suburban, or rural areas, or some mix?

Suhel: Birders in India are generally urban or suburban, and participation in the GBBC largely reflects this. There are some exceptions. For example, in Kerala state (in the extreme southwest of the country), I suspect that rural participation is much higher than the national average.

How does the timing of the GBBC (mid-February) align with migration patterns in India?

Suhel: It works reasonably well. Migrants mostly arrive between September and November, and leave between February and April. Perhaps January would work a bit better for the country as a whole, but mid-February works well.

Praveen: Additionally, it does not conflict with other major programs like Asian Waterbirds Count that is run in January.

How have mobile apps like Birdlog that allow you to submit GBBC observations from smartphones impacted participation?

Suhel: It's hard to put a number to this, but my impression is that BirdLog helps quite a bit. Smartphones are really common among birders in India, and BirdLog has helped both in getting people on board, and also in making it easier for birders to submit records regularly through the year.

How has the GBBC been promoted in India?

Suhel: We promote the GBBC through our website and Facebook event page. Apart from this, we partner with a number of regional and local bird and nature organizations that promote the event in their circles. And finally, some local and regional bird events are timed to coincide with the dates of the GBBC, including Kerala's Common Bird Monitoring Programme and the Bangalore Bird Count. All this builds participation in the GBBC.

Finally, do you and other GBBC participants in India participate in any other national or international citizen science programs, bird-related or otherwise?

Suhel: Citizen science isn't yet all that well known or widespread in India. Some active projects include the Asian Waterbird Census, the Kerala Forest Bird Surveys, MigrantWatch, and the India Biodiversity Portal. A few people also upload their photos to global sites like iNaturalist. I'm involved in a separate project to document changing phenology of trees, called SeasonWatch.

Praveen: I have been involved in organizing Kerala Forest Bird Surveys and that has resulted in quite a good understanding of Western Ghats in Kerala. Most of the data is now already uploaded in eBird. In 2014, Kerala Forest Department-Social Forestry introduced a Green Partners program that involved several organizations that involved mostly amateurs to document wetland birds (Asian Waterbirds Count), common birds (GBBC and CBMP), pelagic birds (Seabird surveys) and heronries (Kerala Heronry Count). Data from citizen science initiatives are valued much by policy makers.