Here we look at number of sightings contributed and their geographical break-up for 2012-13 and compare these with the previous season’s figures. (Please note that the migration “season” is taken to begin on 1 July of one year and end on 30 June the next year.)

Number of sightings

During the 2012-13 season 9017 sightings were uploaded by MigrantWatchers, which was more than twice that of the previous season.

Zone-wise sightings during 2012-13

We have divided the country into very rough zones, as you can see below. In the 2012-13 season the Central zone accounted for most of the sightings, closely followed by the South. Although the NorthWest zone appears to lag behind, do note that this consists of only two large states, so actually is doing very well! Very few sightings came from the Northeast, and none at all from the Islands (Andaman & Nicobars, and Lakshadweep).

A marked difference from the previous season’s break-up was that Central zone overtook South in terms of the share of the sightings for 2012-13 (see below).

Zone-wise increase in sightings

All zones (except for Islands) showed an increase over the previous season’s sightings (see following chart). The Central zone recorded the highest increase in the number of reports (up 194% over previous season), followed by South and North. Although the number of reports is small, the trend for Northeast was positive (+44%) and we hope that many more sightings will pour in from this under-represented region in the coming seasons.

Top States 2012-13

Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat returned the most number of sightings during 2012-13, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand (see table below).

State	Records in 2012-13
Maharashtra	2172
Karnataka	1851
Gujarat	1548
Madhya Pradesh	630
Uttarakhand	502
Haryana	355
Tamil Nadu	343
Delhi	272
Kerala	235
Chhattisgarh	228

For comparison, here are the details of the top 10 states during the previous season (2011-12).

State	Records in 2011-12
Karnataka	1013
Maharashtra	942
Gujarat	771
Delhi	230
Rajasthan	226
Kerala	179
Uttar Pradesh	126
Uttarakhand	113
Chhattisgarh	90
Tamil Nadu	82

Next in the series: Species records