Category “MigrantWatch summaries”

Barn Swallow over 5 years

Thursday, 7 March, 2013

Continuing our presentation of year-wise arrival patterns, here we show the results for Barn Swallow.

Please note that each sighting is shown as a vertical black line.

Barn Swallow by year

From the above illustration it is evident that Barn Swallows usually arrive around late July/early August and nearly all of them leave by April.

You can explore the Barn Swallow sightings on MigrantWatch here.

Greenish Warblers over 5 years

Wednesday, 6 February, 2013

Here we present the year-wise arrival pattern of one of our most observed species – the Greenish Warbler.

As in our earlier illustrations, each sighting is shown as a vertical black line.

Greenish Warbler by year

The above graphic shows that Greenish Warblers start their southward migration into the Indian subcontinent in late August. They stay on till early summer and by May almost all of them return to their breeding grounds in the Himalayas and beyond.

To look at all the Greenish Warbler sightings on MigrantWatch please click here. You may also want to look at our series on Phylloscopus warblers here.

Arrival pattern for the Rosy Starling

Saturday, 5 January, 2013

In this post we share with you the arrival patterns of Rosy Starling as it moves across the country. As is evident in the illustration below, Rosy Starlings arrive early (around mid to end July) in northwestern India, but then take three to four months to trickle down to the southernmost States!

RosyStarlingMap-noBG

You can look at all Rosy Starling sightings in the MigrantWatch database here. Many thanks for all who contributed their observations.

Note on how this map was made: you might wonder why, given there are many hundred Rosy Starling records in the database, there are so few points shown here. In each migration season (July to June; five migration seasons in all) we took the earliest sighting for each State; and these State-wise early sightings are depicted here. So, to reiterate, the points shown on the map are the earliest sightings for each State. Multiple  points within a State represent different migration seasons. The labels on the left describe the typical pattern for a given State or region, taking all migration seasons into consideration. You can download the State-wise first sightings in an Excel file here.

November round-up

Monday, 17 December, 2012

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.

Grey Wagtails over 5 years

Friday, 14 December, 2012

As we compile the MigrantWatch 5-year report we are looking at migration timings of various species. Here we present a visual summary for Grey Wagtail over the five years of data collection.

Each sighting is indicated with a vertical black line, just as in this image of sightings of several species.


It is apparent that most Grey Wagtails arrive in September, although their arrival begins in August itself. The earliest record of the season was by Urmila Ganguli on 1st August 2007. Most of them leave by April. Although the chart shows a couple of sightings in June, both these observations are actually from Himalayan areas where the Grey Wagtails likely breed.

To look at all Grey Wagtail sightings in the MigrantWatch database please click here.

Rosy Starlings over 5 years

Friday, 2 November, 2012

In the course of putting the MigrantWatch 5-year report together, we are looking at migration timings of various species. Here are the sightings of one species — Rosy Starling — in the database.

Each sighting is indicated with a vertical black line, just as in this image of sightings of several species.

You can see that Rosy Starlings arrive quite faithfully in mid-to-end July, and leave fairly punctually at the end of April or very early in May. There are a small number of exceptional sightings: as early as 2nd July in 2008-09 (by Arpit Deomurari in Jamnagar); and as late as 10th June in 2011-2012 (by Tushar Takale in Nagpur – this is also supported by a photo).

Because we have simply put all sightings together, the first and last sightings of the season really only reflect what is happening in northwest India. As the number of sightings increase, regional arrival and departure dates will be interesting to look at.

You can see all Rosy Starling sightings in the database here.

5 years of MigrantWatch

Wednesday, 17 October, 2012

From the MigrantWatch Newsletter, September 2012
It has been just over five years since MigrantWatch began, and we are in the process of compiling all records from the first 5 years into a report. In case there are observations that you have not yet uploaded we request you to please do so. This will enable your records to be included in the report. Watch out for more updates on the report.

Have you been receiving the MigrantWatch newsletter? If you are registered with us, but have not been receiving the monthly newsletter, you can view the September edition here. Please also add mw@migrantwatch.in to your address book so that mail from us doesn’t get wrongly marked as spam.

15000th record on MigrantWatch

Wednesday, 17 October, 2012

From the MigrantWatch Newsletter, September 2012.
With Jayant Wadatkar’s sighting of the Pied Cuckoo near Amravati, Maharashtra, on 22 September 2012, we have reached another milestone. This was the 15,000th record to be logged on to MigrantWatch. By complete coincidence, the 10,000th sighting on MigrantWatch was also from Amravati!

Congratulations to all MigrantWatchers for helping reach this landmark!

Have you been receiving the MigrantWatch newsletter? If you are registered with us, but have not been receiving the monthly newsletter, you can view the September edition here. Please also add mw@migrantwatch.in to your address book so that mail from us doesn’t get wrongly marked as spam.

Summarising participation 2007-2011

Tuesday, 25 October, 2011

On 21 Oct 2011, MigrantWatch reached 10,000 records in the database; and we thought this is a good occasion to summarise how we got here, and to express our appreciation for the participants whose efforts form the backbone of the project.

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!

10,000th sighting on MigrantWatch

Sunday, 23 October, 2011

The 10,000th report on MigrantWatch was uploaded two days ago, on Friday, 21 Oct 2011, with an accompanying photograph. This migrant sighting comes from Mandar Pawgi, Aniket Sayam and Nikhil Wadatkar from Amravati in Maharashtra. Here is a description of the sighting, in Mandar’s words:

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.