What's on in September
You are sipping coffee on your balcony, enjoying the gentle sway of trees when suddenly a bird sound starts a buzz of excitement in you. You make sure that you heard it right and want the bird to call again. After a long pause when you have almost given up, it calls again and this time you know for sure it is a Green Warbler. A migrant warbler! Such is the month of September, where birders across India are excited to spot the season’s first migrants.
Bird Movements:
It is around this time of year when the Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin and Spotted Flycatcher, pass through northwest parts of India to reach their wintering sites in Africa. While passage migrants continue their journey abroad, a number of winter migrants have already arrived to stay here for the next few months. Waders have been recorded from all throughout the country, with large flocks being sighted as far south as Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Leaf Warblers have also been recorded from several sites, and soon we will see records of Sykes’s, Booted and Blyth’s Warblers being reported by birdwatchers.
Annual taxonomy update over
The annual eBird taxonomy is over and the full update can be seen here.
Do not forget to change your language to English (India) from your eBird preferences menu to be able to see familiar english names for birds on your checklists. For lists from India, it is also recommended that you use the eBird India portal, either on the web or on the app.
Events & Campaign
The Bharatpur Birding Week starts at Keoladeo National Park and the dates of this event are from 6th – 11th October. Details can be seen here.
India will celebrate its 4th Wild Bird Day on 9 October. The idea is to spend as much time as you can to observe and document birds on this day to generate a snapshot of the distribution and abundance of birds at this time of the year. Checklists uploaded to eBird on this day will be automatically counted towards the ‘October Big Day’—a global effort to document as many species as possible in a single 24- hour period.
The Global Bird Weekend is from 8 – 10 October. More details can be seen here.
Challenges
Important: Considering the Covid-19 pandemic, please ensure that you adhere to all instructions by central and local authorities while birding.