News
People urged to observe their garden birds and join the citizen science project
A Garden Birdwatch programme where the people could observe common birds and take a count has been organised by the Colombo University’s Field Ornithology Group (FOGSL).
Orange-headed Thrush found in home garden. Pic courtesy Buddhika Wijayawardhana
The programme is described as a citizen science project where the submitted records will be analysed with the aim of observing trends in common birds.
“We are glued to the TVs, computers and mobile devices. But even a small garden can be visited by dozens of birds. Garden Bird Watch (GBW) is also an opportunity for everyone – specially for children to go out and enjoy the nature around us,” FOGSL member Dr. Sampath Seneviratne said.
Though the focus was on the threat to the rare and endemic birds, common birds were also under threat, he said. An example was the House Sparrow that was common decades ago, but has now disappeared from our home gardens.
“Take a count of the number of birds of each species that you can see during a specific period and repeat the same exercise every year. In this way, we can get an idea of how the number of birds visiting our gardens is declining. If done on many places and continued over a long period, these data will be useful for scientific analysis,” Dr. Seneviratne said.
Similar bird counts are organised in different countries. The Christmas Bird Count in the United States and Britain’s Big Garden Birdwatch are long standing citizen science programmes.
But not all birds have flown away. Keen birdwatcher Mahendra Siriwardhane says larger numbers of some bird species can be seen in home gardens now. “About 25 years ago, seeing a Forest Wagtail in a home garden was news. In contrast, today this bird is seen in many home gardens” he explained. Orange Headed Thrush and Blyth’s Reed Warbler are two other migratory species, that are now more often found in home gardens, he said.
Rather than just birdwatching, go one little step further and start your tally record. Your home garden bird community will start speaking to you, revealing its secrets. What you discover in this engaging exercise could be part of a great change that is happening over the long term.
FOGSL urges people to enter their garden birdwatch records to www.gardenbirdwatch.wordpress.com. The records could also be handed over to Kurulu-Kaiya exhibition and birdwatching fair that is being held at Diyasaru Park in Thalawathugoda today.