200 birdwatchers to meet at Megamalai today

“Ornithologists, bird lovers, foresters and NGOs working on wildlife conservation will discuss various aspects related to bird conservation, bird monitoring, status of birds and its habitat in Tamil Nadu,” said wildlife biologist P Jeganathan, who is a member of TN E-Bird Checklist Survey group.

The current status of critically-endangered birds, occurrence, seasonality of migratory birds and the threats for the bird life are special topics to be discussed. The basic information needed for most of the bird research and conservation is checklist of birds from a particular area, said Jeganathan.

For the last five years, this Tamil Birders Network Group (TBNG) members painstakingly collected and collated the birds’ population in Tamil Nadu and compiled it. This will be a first-ever very well-researched and scientifically-authentic checklist of birds of Tamil Nadu. The preliminary document on this was released in 2016. Since then, it’s been updated every year and the results will be presented in every meet every year, he explained.

“Megamalai wildlife warden Bhosale Sachin Tukaram and Theni district forest officer S Gowtham are to inaugurate the two-day event and a lot of students have been invited to make the event into a major awareness programme,” said C P Rajkumar, president, Vanam, an NGO working on wildlife subjects in Theni district.

Short workshops on documenting and listing of birds through eBird ( www.ebird.org ), Bird call recording, processing and uploading, raising awareness on birds and their conservation are scheduled for the participants. Tips of identifying the difficult group of birds such as warblers, waders, larks, pipits and eagles will be explained by the expert bird watchers, Rajkumar said.

“The objective of the meet is not only to encourage bird watching but also inculcate the cultural practice to birds. Another mega event, Pongal Bird Count, is also conducted by the birders across TN,” said veteran birder V Shantharam of Madras Naturalist Society.

The results of Bird Count 2018 will be discussed during this meet and the subsequent details will be published soon in Bird Count India survey, a partnership of various organisations for bird listing and monitoring in India, said K V Sudhakar, president, Madras Naturalist Society.