No takers for Great Backyard Bird Count from Andhra?

The worldwide event to begin on Feb. 14

The organisers of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), a worldwide event, are anxious about the poor response to the event from nature lovers in Andhra Pradesh.

In the first edition of the GBBC - 2013 held in India last year only ten checklists were contributed from A.P. compared to the 122 lists from neighbouring Karnataka, 89 Tamil Nadu, 63 from Maharashtra and 30 lists from Assam. The organisers are worried that the same might happen this year too.

Last year participation

Last year birders from 111 countries participated, counting around 35 million birds of 4,000 species. Indian birders submitted 438 lists of 537 species.

Kadapa-based GBBC volunteer and one of the top contributors in the first edition, P. Jeganathan, told The Hindu that with the exception of A.P. the contribution of all the Southern States, including Chhattisgarh, was very good last year.

By participating in the GBBC, nature lovers could become part of the world event to be conducted from February 14 to 17.

All that is required is to go birding for not less than 15 minutes listing all the species seen and count the number of birds. One has to simply log in to www.ebird.com and submit the species list for posterity.

There was no need to identify every single species, only those recognised needed to be counted, Mr. Jeganathan said.

While it was great fun to participate in the Backyard Bird Count, the annual snapshot of the bird populations helped to answer a variety of important questions, including how birds were affected by habitat changes and weather, he said.