What's on in September
September is an exciting time of the year for birders. Waterbodies across the country now rapidly populate themselves with incoming shorebirds from other parts of the world, while resident waterfowl often have a group of their young ones following them around.
Bird Movements
September is also a very good time to witness birds in passage as they move to their final wintering grounds. This makes for a great opportunity to try and record birds that may not usually be found in your region in either summer or winter. The strength of the monsoon in some parts of the country have also blown in some interesting pelagic birds – with skuas, boobies, storm-petrels all being reported. If you’re on the coast, do look out for species which are usually found further off-shore.
The calls of several warblers would now be expected to become a part of your birding experience, and some of you may hear a song or two by these restless birds as they stake out their wintering territories. Several birders in the country are now reporting Greenish Warblers, while Grey Wagtails too are making an appearance in many parts of India!
Events
The Global Shorebird Counting was observed from 01 September 2017 – 10 September 2017.
Bird Count India held workshops on “Bird Monitoring and Documentation using eBird” in Indore on 01 September and in Patna on 09 September.
The current (wet season) window for the Kerala Bird Atlas closes mid-September.
Taxonomy Update and eBird India Portal
The annual eBird taxonomy update has been applied. Here is a summary of the changes which are relevant to India’s birds. A number of interesting and much awaited splits, species reshuffles, as well as slashes and English (India) names have been included.
Also, do not forget to use the eBird India portal when submitting lists from India. It is easy to do both from the web and from the mobile app. More details here.
Challenges
This month’s eBirding challenge is to bird on all 30 days of the month. Additionally, there are new gaps to fill for September 2017! Do take a look at the global eBirder of the Month challenge as well.