Delhi’s Big Bird Day: Birders see drop in density; results next week

Hundreds of birders in Delhi and the National Capital Region participated in the Big Bird Day count, with overcast skies and light rain making it challenging to spot birds. The overall bird density was lower compared to previous years. Rare sightings included a Pallid harrier and an Indian Eagle Owl. The results of the count, which recorded 253 different species last year, will be announced next weekend.

With binoculars glued to eyes, hundreds of birders set out across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) on Sunday morning to take part in the Big Bird Day (BBD) count of 2024. The elements --- overcast skies and light rains --- made sighting some birds difficult in parts of NCR, apart from an overall drop in bird density compared to previous years.

An Indian eagle owl was among the birds sighted on Sunday. (Kavi Nanda)

The results of the count, which saw 253 different species being recorded last year, are likely to be announced next weekend, the organisers said.

“Initially, rain played a part and till around 9 am, it was fairly overcast. However, after that, visibility improved and the rain stopped, and people were able to spot birds more easily. Overall, we have seen lesser density this year, but this has not been limited to the day of the count, but throughout the winter at most wetlands in NCR,” said Nikhil Devasar, birder and one of the organisers of the event.

He said no highly unusual sighting has been made so far this year, however, rare sightings included a Pallid harrier at Ismailpur in Faridabad and the Indian Eagle Owl at Bhondsi in Haryana.

Over 40 different sites were covered across NCR, which included Dhanauri wetlands, Sultanpur, Mangar Bani, Yamuna floodplains and Bhondsi.

Birder Kanwar B Singh, who covered Bhondsi, said fewer raptors were spotted, largely owing to the skies being overcast. “We generally see raptors flying high, but this was not possible as it was fairly cloudy. We still managed to spot the Indian eagle-owl. Other sightings included the Eurasian sparrowhawk, Tickell’s thrush and the Blue rock thrush, which are all winter visitors,” he said.

While 253 species were recorded in last year’s count, the number was 214 in 2022, 244 in 2021 and 253 in 2020.

Veteran birder Surya Prakash, who covered the Dhanauri wetlands, said even though the weather was not conducive for birding, their team managed to record over 100 different species in the area. Prakash, however, said the number of water fouls and the sarus crane was fairly low.

“The water levels are fairly low and the presence of pesticides is possibly impacting birds. Till last year, we had nearly 30-40 sarus cranes in the area, but this year, we only managed to spot around eight in the 8 sqkm area,” he said, adding that other sightings included the greater spotted eagle and the steppe eagle.

A similar trend was seen across Delhi’s biodiversity park, which included Aravallis, Neela Hauz, Tilpath Valley, Kalindi Kunj, Yamuna and Kamla Nehru Ridge.

Birders said temperature plays a key role in winter migration of birds and 2023 was one of the warmest years in recent times. “This possibly led to delayed migration, and for short distance migration, birds could not decide when or whether to migrate,” said Faiyaz Khudsar, scientist-incharge of DDA’s biodiversity parks programme.

He said at the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, the Eurasian wigeon was a noteworthy sighting, besides Pallas’s gull and the Black-rumped flameback. “At the Aravalli Biodiversity Park, the Collared scops owl was a noteworthy sighting,” he added.

Khudsar said out of the seven biodiversity parks, the highest count – 87 species – was recorded at Yamuna Biodiversity Park, followed by 70 species at Kalindi Biodiversity Park. The sightings made there included Ferruginous pochard and the Bar-headed goose.