The latest news at MigrantWatch has been emailed to all participants via the June 2013 issue of the monthly round-up. If you are registered with us, but haven’t received this email, please check your spam folder; and add mw@migrantwatch.in to your address book. Please send us a message if you have any questions.

More than 200 birders from all across India participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count held between 15th and 18th February. This year’s event (which until last year had been largely a North American affair) was conducted globally for the first time. Indian birdwatchers put up a wonderful show. A summary of the first Indian edition of the Great Backyard Bird Count can be viewed here.

Another event – the Big Bird Day – was celebrated on 24th February. Coordinated by Delhibird, more than 300 individuals and teams birded at various locations across India and recorded all birds they could see on that Sunday. More details are available here.

We reached another milestone on MigrantWatch with Dr. Jayant Wadatkar’s sighting of Garganey at Wadali Tank, near Amravati, Maharashtra, on 10 February, 2013. Dr. Wadatkar sighted eight migrants (including Garganey) during this visit. This was the 20,000th record to be uploaded on MigrantWatch. By strange coincidence the 10,000th, 15,000th and 20,000th sightings have all come from Amravati, Maharashtra, while 15,000th and 20,000th sightings have been reported by the same person – Dr. Jayant Wadatkar!

Congratulations to all MigrantWatchers who helped in reaching this landmark!

The November issue of monthly round-up of the latest at MigrantWatch has been sent to all participants. If you are registered with us, but haven’t received this email, please check your spam folder; and add mw@migrantwatch.in to your address book. Do send us a message if you have any questions.

MigrantWatcher Nimesh Ved recently visited Nagaland and attempted to find out more about the mass hunting of Amur Falcons. For an update on this trip please visit Nimesh’s blog.

See related MW blog post here.

Migrant reports have slowly been coming in for the beginning of the 2011 migration season. The picture below shows which species we expect to arrive in July and August separately (based on MigrantWatch data from 2007-2010); and which species have been reported from this year (up to 22 August).

You can see that about half the species that normally arrive in July were again seen first in July this year. A few others (like the magnificent Black-tailed Godwit) were seen a bit later than usual (in August this year); and Ruff and Gull-billed Tern, although normally reported in July, have not been reported yet this year (as on 22 August).

Of species that are normally first seen in August, only a few have been reported this year. Most August migrants have not yet been reported. Whimbrel was reported twice from Kerala in July, both times by Jayan Thomas — this is the earliest report of the species in the MigrantWatch database. The last sighting of Whimbrel from the previous season was on 11 June 2011 in Gujarat, reported by Maulik Varu. (This is quite late; most last sightings are in May.)

The picture above is not definitive by any means — there must be lots of MigrantWatchers who haven’t yet uploaded their sightings for July and August 2011. Please do remember to upload your sightings to the database!

(Thank you to those who have contributed sightings in July and August 2011: A Ajit, Abhimanyu Lele, Ainsley Priestman, Avishkar Munje, Bidyut Bikash Barman, Dr. Jayan Thomas, Dr. Maulik Varu, Dr. S. Prasanth, Fionna Prins, James Williams, Mohanraj K., Nandita Amin, Prashanth, Prashanth Mugali, Rohit Charpe, Sachin Shurpali, Shantilal Varu, Subhadeep Ghosh, Sumesh PT, Tilak Chandra Sarmah, Udiyaman Shukla, Wg Cdr Y Prakash Rao (retd).)