Ramit Singal is an engineering student studying in Manipal. He has been interested in birds ever since he was gifted Martin Woodcock’s Birds of the Indian Subcontinent about 10 years ago. Birding is now a serious hobby of his. He tries and devotes as much time to birds as possible and is trying hard to make birding an established hobby amongst students within his campus. He has been in Manipal for 2.5 years, and he (irregularly) maintains his journals at http://manipalbirding.tumblr.com/

Manipal is a small town located in the Udupi district of Karnataka, and situated quite favourably at an equal distance from the Western Ghats to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. Manipal is best known for its university, but it is also endowed with a diverse range of habitats and, as a direct consequence, a diverse population of birds. The area hosts nearly 190 species of birds, a good 40 of which are seen only during the winter months. However, not all of them are migrants that cross international borders, or are palaeartic – many are local migrants or those that breed in the northern plains but winter in the south (Eg. Blue-tailed Bee-eater).

In terms of migrants which are palaeartic – the number drops down slightly and becomes 30, still fairly impressive. This ’30′ includes all forms of birds – waders, warblers, raptors, etc but Manipal has thus far failed to attract any wintering waterfowl, despite suitable habitat being available.

While I will get down to the nitty-gritties of the species and the frequencies of their sightings later, I want to put down a few words regarding the habitats in Manipal. There are three main different types of birding locales in this small town, all within one kilometre of the other. One of the most productive is the man-made Manipal Lake – a waterbody that dries up on the shores just in time for incoming waders to reap the benefits of the now available mudflats and vegetation. Another – and my favourite site in the region – is the Eshwar Nagar woodlands. These are basically the forests of yore, of which only a few fragments remain – the rest being grasslands (what were old paddies) or cultivation. However, there is just about enough in the area to keep it going and flourishing as a birdwatching site. Lastly, and the only site with any tourism in Manipal – End Point. This region is the edge of the plateau between the ghats and coastal plains and comprises of scrubby laterite hillsides and secondary forests.

As the monsoons end in mid September and leave behind massive puddles in the laterite patches of End Point, the first waders – usually sandpipers and sand plovers are seen. They depart as soon as the water dries up, leaving behind the right habitat for the incoming flocks of Greater Short-toed Larks and other such birds – wagtails and pipits. The waders instead move on to the much wetter and much richer ecosystem of the Manipal Lake. Aggressive Ashy Drongos also start taking over every suitable perch possible. This is also the time when the open areas within forests get their first Brown Shrikes, which are noisiest at the start as they mark out their territories for the coming winter. By the time October’s first week ends, wintering and on-passage Brown Flycatchers, Bright Green and Greenish Warblers, Booted and Blyth’s Reed Warblers, and Barn Swallows can be seen anywhere – every garden and compound. The Bright Green Warblers (subspecies nitidus of the Greenish Warblers; but often considered a separate species) are the most common winter migrants in the region, closely followed by the Acrocephalus/Hippolais warblers and Ashy Drongos.

Amidst huge flocks of Chestnut-tailed Starlings, the Eshwar Nagar woodland throws up the most fascinating birds every now and then. Apart from the recent Broad-tailed Grassbird, the winters bring to it the odd Black-naped Oriole and varying populations of Oriental Turtle Doves. It also holds the largest numbers of Green(ish) Warblers and Blyth’s Reed Warblers – the latter probably because of the extra bit of moistness early morning . Almost 90% of all Brown Shrikes in Manipal winter in this patch and Marsh Harriers patrol the nearby paddyfields for the odd waders, crakes, and possibly Lesser Whistling Teals.

The open grassland and scrubby vegetation that the laterite hillsides of Manipal naturally provide are good areas for the Common Stonechat – a regular but scarce visitor, a status it shares with the Tree and Blyth’s Pipits – both of which are also found in similar habitats (although the Tree Pipit does like the presence of trees around it a lot more . As the sun rises, the Booted Eagles also rise up with it. The Common Kestrel is a rare winter migrant here, this is the right habitat to find one. All of these arrive post mid-October in general.

Due to human intervention, these same hillsides have been flattened at the top of End Point, but this move has put the habitat in good favour with passage flocks of over 500 Greater Short-toed Larks especially on return migration in February, as well as birds like the Grey-necked Bunting, which stayed for >3 weeks in Feb 2011, and Yellow and White Wagtails, the latter of which is the commonest wintering wagtail and is present in very good numbers from late November onwards. The Grey Wagtail is surprisingly rare, only seen around the discharge streams coming from the Manipal Lake. Manipal has several fields and grounds for sports that are used in the early mornings by birds. Their moist surface again brings together a few wagtails and waders – stints and Redshanks being especially fond of such habitats.

Speaking of man-made habitats, of note perhaps is the Peregrine Falcon (subspecies calidus) that stayed for a week in October 2009 and perched regularly on the boys’ hostels in the engineering college’s campus!

All in all, while the number of migrants may not be astounding, Manipal never fails to throw in a new surprise each winter. Its geographical location makes it an ideal place for getting the odd bird on passage between the extreme south and the west. All it really needs is more eyes to be on the lookout for any unusual sightings in its very varied landscape.

Here are links to Ramit’s MigrantWatch sightings and photographs.

Born in Pandhurna (M.P.) and settled in Nagpur, Tarun Balpande works as an Area Manager in the Oncology division of a pharmaceutical company. He was drawn into the excitement of birding five years ago, when he took part in a Great Indian Bustard census. After observing migrating Bar-headed Geese, he now concentrates on migratory birds. He also works on the importance of planting fruit-bearing trees, and on getting a bird-feeder in every home in Nagpur.

In 2008, I came to know through the nagpurbirds e-group, run by Tarique Sani, that several Bar-headed Geese had been collared in Mongolia. In November of that year, Raju Kasambe and I started searching around Nagpur for Bar-headed Geese to check for a collar. At one point, Raju Kasambe spotted “something” yellow on the neck of a goose, but our limited optics didn’t allow us to see it clearly.

But the big day finally came!! On 19 January 2009, my wife Rakhee, son Chaitanya and I, together with Kishor Khandekar were watching a group of Bar-headed Geese, when I suddenly noticed a goose with a yellow collar around its neck. Through my binoculars I could read the letters “NU”, and I was able to click a few images with these letters clearly visible. But what did “NU” mean?

With the help of Raju Kasambe and Tarique Sani, I came to know that black lettering on a yellow collar meant that the goose had been marked in Mongolia. Martin Gilbert informed me that NU was an adult female, captured on 17 July 2008 in the Darkhad Valley, Hovsgol province of Mongolia.

Many Bar-headed Geese had been collared there to understand the migration of this species. These birds were collared by a team led by Martin Gilbert, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Mongolia. A number of species have been marked using different techniques appropriate for each species. The Bar-headed Geese were marked with a neck collar inscribed with a unique alphanumeric code.

All this happened 4800 km away! The Bar-headed Goose we sighted was at Paradgaon lake, which is situated on the Umred road, around 28 km from Nagpur. The entire season myself and other fellow birders were looking for a collar other than NU, but no one find another collared Goose. At the end of the migration season, we were all looking forward to the next season — NU had left us with wonderful memories.

Next season, on 5 November 2009, Raju Kasambe recorded the first arrival of a flock of 300 Geese at Paradgaon lake. 0n 12 December 2009, I clicked a photo of my old Mongolian girlfriend NU! This affair continued in 2010, when I photographed her again on 26 November. I emailed a message to Martin Gilbert, and he replied: “How good to hear from you again, and thank you so much for sending your sighting! …it is indeed great news that you have been able to relocate NU once again, and I believe this is the first time that we have had any bird resighted in three consecutive years!”. This is the best appreciation for any birdwatcher.

This year, 2011, I started monitoring the lake from 10 November. On 24 November 2011, Rakhee, Chaitanya and I, together with birdwatcher Avinash, saw a flock of 275-300 Bar-headed Geese. I started searching the flock for NU. Euphoria !!! she was there !!! As usual I clicked a few photos.

I am proud to report that NU visits Paradgaon lake for the fourth consecutive year! The exact location of the lake is: 20°92’58.06″N 79°22’24.14″E

For other reports of marked birds from Mongolia, look at this page on Birds of India. And a copy of a message from Martin Gilbert is here.

For more information about Bar-headed Geese, including some recent information on their migration, take a look at this species profile on the MigrantWatch blog.

There are various interesting tidbits in the article, including this statement, presumably taken from the ZSI Handbook that is mentioned in the previous paragraph in the article:

“The most abundant winter migrants to the Indian subcontinent are ducks and geese. Both constitute about 85 per cent of the population.”

What do you think? Which species is likely (in your estimation) to be the most abundant winter visitor to India? Do write your answers in the comments section below.

Dr Jayan Thomas is an ophthalmologist by profession; but early in the morning and on Sundays, he is an inquisitive birdwatcher and photographer. Watching a Blue-tailed Bee-eater catch its prey and smash it against a wire before swallowing the bee sparked his curiosity about birds and their behaviour. He lives in Cannanore, Kerala, near the ocean and is President of the Cannanore Ophthalmological Society.

It was Sunday the 30th of October 2011, and myself and Mr. PC Rajeevan had decided to go to a place called Ezhome about 23 Km from Cannanore (Kannur), on the coast of northern Kerala. I woke up at 5 AM and started my journey to Ezhome by 5.30 AM. Rajeevan was at Ezhome waiting for me and after a cup of hot roadside café tea we were on to a slow birding walk, with binos, camera and an umbrella, as it was drizzling. The first bird to be seen was a Purple Heron, then a Blue-tailed Bee-eater and so on. After 2 hours of birding we counted about 40 species and were about to call it a day, when we decided instead to first go to Madaipara, since it is close to Ezhome. We reached Madaipara just before noon, and so bird activity was very low. Suddenly Mr. Rajeevan spotted a group of birds across the road and we went to check them out. There were about 200 Lesser Sand Plovers feeding on a burned patch of grass, and some bathing in rock pools. Among these Lesser Sand Plovers was a smaller and slimmer bird with yellow legs and pearly edged wings. What could this be? We were intrigued.

With caution we approached the bird and found to our surprise that it was quite unusual. Since the bird was feeding and walking around we had ample time to take some decent photos. During flight the upper parts appeared uniform, with no prominent wing pattern. Driving back home we discussed the possibilities of a new species being sighted in Kerala.

We whittled down our “differential diagnosis” of the bird to three species:
1. Buff-breasted Sandpiper.
2. Long-toed Stint
3. Reeve (Female Ruff)

Long-toed Stint is almost similar to this new bird, but the stint has prominent facial markings. Reeve was a possibility, but this new bird did not have a post-ocular stripe. A post-ocular stripe is essential for the bird to have been a Reeve. Moreover this bird was substantially smaller in size than a Reeve. (For a visual estimate of size see the photos below, which have this bird together with Lesser Sand Plovers.)

Now the only other possibility was the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, a New World bird. Yes, this bird looked like the Buff-breasted Sandpiper in size and all other features. This bird was about 19 cm with a plain face, an eye-ring , streaked crown and yellow legs. The picture of the bird was sent all around the world by MigrantWatch and others. We are thankful to Praveen J., Sashikumar, Aasheesh Pittie, Bill Harvey, Rex De-Silva and Krys Kazmierczak for having identified the bird as the Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis) breeds in the Arctic tundra of North America and is a long distance migrant to South America, mainly Argentina. The Canadian wildlife service estimates that there are only about 15,000 birds in the world and hence it is classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. This bird which came to Madaipara could have been lost: instead of going to Argentina, this bird might have been wind-blown from the Great Plains Flyway of North America and landed up in India. Our sighting appears to be only the third of this species from South Asia.

Madaipara is a laterite flat hillock near the Ezhimala Naval Academy. On one side of Madaipara is the Arabian sea and the other side a mountain range of seven small hills (Ezhimala in Malayalam means seven hills). Sandwiched between the sea and the seven hills is a long meandering river. Madaipara is basically a flat land with few trees and shrubs and a lot of weeds. The vegetation is sometimes set on fire, and these spots are ideal for birds which come in search of insects. There are occasional rock puddles too on the hillock up to Spring. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper was seen here for 4 days. Of these, I sighted it on two different days and my birding pal Rajeevan sighted it on all 4 days.

Finding a rare bird like this is one of the dreams of the serious birder. Locating and identifying a species that is least expected is a great challenge and great thrill. You have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself for this. Reporting a rare bird carries a lot of responsibility. It becomes part of science. If you believe that you have seen a rare bird, study it carefully, take photos, video if possible and note the circumstances of the sighting. Then as soon as possible alert other birders.

You can see Dr Jayan Thomas’s MigrantWatch sightings and photos here.

More about the Buff-breasted Sandpiper from Wikipedia and from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

As you can see from the chart to the right, the total number of registered participants in MigrantWatch showed a big jump in the second half of 2008, and has been rising steadily since then. From January 2010 onwards, we have been getting an average of 12-16 new registrants per month. The total now (as of 17 Oct 2011) stands at 1,334.

Of course, not everyone who registers on the website actually participates by contributing sightings. In fact, only about 550 of those who have registered are actually contributors, having uploaded at least one sighting to the database. The rise in the number of such contributors has been relatively slow since January 2010, averaging about 1-2 every month.

The total number of sightings in the database has grown in fits and starts over the years, showing a jump in the second half of every year (that is, at the start of the winter migration season). The total now stands at a whisker over 10,000.

Who are the MigrantWatchers who have built up the database to this level? Many contributors have uploaded just a single sighting to MigrantWatch; and on the other end of the spectrum, a few have many hundred records under their belt. We would like to emphasise that all contributions are valuable, because they add to the storehouse of information about our birds. So we thank all contributors, regardless of how many sightings that have uploaded. But in addition, we wanted to highlight some particularly active MigrantWatchers – those who have contributed the most to this open pool of information. These star contributors are listed in the table below, in decreasing order of the number of records submitted to MigrantWatch, separated for First sightings of the season, Last sightings of the season, General sightings, and All sightings put together.

So these are the participants who have contributed the largest number of records to MigrantWatch. But what about regularity of reporting? Are there participants who have contributed consistently, month-by-month to the database? The most consistent participants are listed to the right. A consistency score of 1 means that a person has contributed records every month since joining MigrantWatch; and a score of 0.5 means that he or she has contributed records in 50% of the months since joining.

Again, thanks to all of you who have generously contributed your time and efforts to MigrantWatch. As the project begins to accumulate enough records so that interesting patterns emerge and new findings are made possible, we hope you will keep in mind that all this is made possible solely through your contributions!

On 20th October morning, we made our way to a very famous birding spot in our city, the Wadali tank — a haven for birdlife and birdwatchers. On our arrival, we were welcomed by waterhens, coots, ducks, kingfisher and many other waterbirds. For the past two weeks we had been highly excited to see migratory birds at the tank. This morning, on the eastern corner of the lake, we saw a few waterhens moving actively in the sunlight within the net of Lotus leaves. As we watched them, suddenly Nikhil saw a very beautiful bird with brilliant colours and white spots on the wings. He excitedly called us as this was a new species to us. All the activity put the bird to flight, but before it did so, Nikhil managed to take a few snaps (one is shown below). We were extremely happy to see a new species, which we later confirmed as an Eastern Baillon’s Crake. According to available records the bird is a vagrant at Wadali Tank and surrounds.

The smallest rail found in India, the Eastern Baillon’s Crake Porzana pusilla breeds in Kashmir and in Central and East Asia. This quail-sized swamp bird migrates south and spreads across the subcontinent in September-October, migrating back to its breeding grounds in March-April. It frequents jheels, ponds, marshes and even irrigated cropfields, where it feeds on seeds of aquatic plants, snails, worms, and insects and their larvae.

The greenish bill, white ‘marble’ pattern on the brown upperparts, and short tail separate this species from the much rarer Little Crake Porzana parva, which has a red base to its bill, with wings projecting out more from the body. Eastern Baillon’s Crakes are mostly solitary or are seen in pairs. Because they are more secretive than other crakes, they are relatively difficult to observe, and are easily missed — and there are only 17 reports of this species in the MigrantWatch database so far.

Congratulations to Mandar, Aniket and Nikhil for an excellent sighting, which looks like a juvenile bird from the accompanying photo. Appropriately, the 10,000th MigrantWatch report comes from smack in the centre of the country!

Soon to follow on the blog: a description of the accumulation of sightings to 10,000, together with an appreciation of the MigrantWatchers whose contributions have made this happen.

Up to 11 Oct 2011, 9900 sightings had been reported to the MigrantWatch database. This information is meant to be used, so at MigrantWatch we are gathering our thoughts to put together a comprehensive summary of the data that the project has gathered since it started in July 2007. When it is ready, we’ll send the report to all MigrantWatch participants, with grateful thanks.

In preparing the report, we have been thinking about how best to show a picture of arrival dates of different species (for example, see a crude attempt here). In this post, I’d like to show you some first attempts, and ask for your feedback on improvements and additions.

The picture below shows sighting information from all years of the project (until 11 October 2011) and across all India, for the 23 winter migrants for which there are at least 100 records in the database. Each short vertical line depicts a sighting. The dates are arranged from July to July, corresponding with a typical migration season (rather than a calendar year). To help see the patterns of first sightings, it’s better not to focus on the very earliest sighting dates and instead look at when the main concentration of first sightings is. The yellow boxes in the picture depict when the earliest 1% to 5% of sightings happened. (This is just like the percentile rankings that students get on some exams.) The width of the yellow boxes indicates how spread out the arrival is for each species: wide boxes mean that the earliest sightings are spread out considerably in time. In the picture below, species are arranged in order of the earliest 1% of arrivals (ie, the left edge of the yellow boxes).

What does this summary tell us? We see that shorebirds form a large proportion of early arriving species, which confirms what I’m sure many of us have casually noticed. Ducks tend to turn up a bit later, as also wagtails and warblers. Although only a few MigrantWatch participants keep an eye out for departing migrants (and so information from the end of the season is thin), it seems as though most migrants have left the country by the beginning of May. The departure appears particularly abrupt for species like Rosy Starling, Common Sandpiper, Greenish Warbler and Blyth’s Reed-warbler. Individuals of other species hang on for a while, and several shorebirds have been seen well into June, possibly birds who have decided to skip their return flight altogether and instead over-summer in India.

Of course, this all-India picture obscures variation in migration dates in different parts of the country: migrants don’t suddenly appear everywhere at the same time! To try to look for geographical differences, we have grouped sightings into five regions (excluding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep): North-East, North-West, North, Central, and South. Region-wise sightings for two migrants are illustrated below.

Rosy Starlings first appear in the North-West, as might be expected from their breeding grounds (Eastern Europe to Kazakhstan). Their early initial arrival, in beginning July, is followed by a gradual and unhurried trickle-down to other parts of the country (except to the North-East, where the species does not occur). It takes nearly two months for these birds to reach the South. In contrast, departure dates are more uniform, all around end-April, presumably as the birds hurry back en-masse to their breeding grounds.

In contrast, White Wagtails put in a much later first appearance, starting in the North-East and North (apart from a couple of oddly early sightings in the South). They then appear relatively rapidly in North-West, Central and South — in roughly the opposite East-West sequence as Rosy Starlings. Departure of White Wagtails is less clear, because of the low number of observations.

Do these visual depictions of MigrantWatch information make sense? Are they useful? How can we improve them? Are they too simple? Too complicated? Please do let us know in the comments below; we would like to summarise the data in a manner that is of most use and interest to you! (Of course, as always, you can play around with the data yourself — just login and click on view data/maps to download the entire database.)

And please don’t forget to report your migrant sightings. MigrantWatch is no more and no less than the sum of contributions of all participants; to paint a clear picture of bird migration, the more reports (of first, and last, and general sightings) the better!

What do you do?
I am a doctor.

When did you start watching birds?
1992

Who would you consider your birding mentor?
It was Mr. Induchoodan’s book title ‘Keralathile Pakshikal’ (Birds of Kerala) by K. K. Neelakantan that helped me identify the birds in my early days of bird watching.

Please describe a memorable birding experience.
In 1998, there was a Pariah Kite (P Kite) nest and a Brahminy Kite (B Kite) nest near my house on two coconut trees, 50 meters apart. Each had two chicks. The P Kite chicks were a bit younger than the B Kite chicks that could fly a bit but were still mostly dependant on their parents for food.

One early morning (22 Feb 1998) while I was watching these birds I saw that both the father kites had done out. A little later the P Kite father brought back a big fat rat and gave it to mother P Kite to feed the chicks. The chicks noisily feasted on the rat and this caused the B Kite chicks to pester their mother for food. But the mother stood helplessly and waited for her mate to bring back food for their chicks. The P Kite again went out and came back with another big rat. This time the P Kite chicks were full and refused to eat the rat. So the P Kite kept moved to a nearby coconut leaf and waited with the rat under his talons. Meanwhile the hungry B Kite chicks continued to pester their mother for food. In desperation she flew to a leaf near the P Kite with the rat who made threatening gestures at her. The B Kite retreated to a leaf a bit further away from the P Kite watching and waiting. The B Kite chicks soon started pestering her again for food. The P Kite watched and then flew away leaving the rat on the coconut leaf. The B Kite took the rat and flew towards her nest with the chicks following closely. She then fed the rat to her chicks.

I was very surprised to see this behaviour of these birds of prey.

What is/are your favourite migrants?
The Brown-breasted Flycatcher

What is your favourite place to watch migrants?
My garden

Do you have any advice for beginning birdwatchers and naturalists?
If you keep a daily record of all the birds you will be surprised by what all you discover about them. When I started recording all the common birds daily, I found that the Pariah Kite also migrates in my area. They disappear from around here at the onset of the SW Monsoon and return only after around sixty days.

Why do you think people should care about birds and nature?
All living beings in this world depend on each other in one way or another. Man can not survive with just a few cultivated plants and a handful of domesticated animals. Moreover, Mother Nature gives us joy and happiness; she heals all our pain and distress; calms us when we are worried and angry; she teaches us compassion, tolerance and patience.

You can see Roopa V’s MigrantWatch reports here.