The eigth Kerala Bird Race will be held on the Sunday, 16th November 2014 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. Kerala Birder along with The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) and Yuhina Eco-Media is organizing the HSBC Bird Race in Kerala, a signature event of the Bank, on 16th November 2014. Kerala Bird Race is a dawn to dusk event where teams of bird-watchers will spend the entire day birding in and around each city. There are no pre-determined routes - you can watch birds in multiple locations all within 100 km radius of each of the site to see as many birds as you can. The participants will try to record the birds from each site; learn about the finer points of bird-watching from the experts & the experienced, and then later in the evening, all teams will meet at a suitable venue over dinner and an interactive tête-à-tête. Each Team gets an opportunity to interact with the others and recount their day's experiences. All in all, it is a great end to a day well spent with and for the feather-folk, and for nature.
Like last time, HSBC Bird Race shall be NON-COMPETITIVE. There are no prizes for winners and the idea is visit multiple sites and make lists for the day. There are no strict rules and it is only about the fun element in this exercise, which will hopefully help stimulate enormous interest in bird-watching as a highly popular hobby. The event will give us a good idea of the nature of this region's birdlife and shall help build up support for environment and nature conservation.
Last year, we had more than 350 bird-watchers on the field on a single day, many of them fresh into the hobby. Birdwatchers from other states are encouraged to take it as a chance to do some great birding in Kerala. We sometimes have participants from Kanyakumari district joining us at Thiruvananthapuram.
This year HSBC Bird Race shall have eBird in the backend. We encourage teams to make site-specific complete lists and upload it in eBird. There is no time restrictions on each list; however you are encouraged to separate the lists for each site so that you get 3-4 lists at the end of the day.
The Grand Plan
Play the race hard - try to visit as many good birding sites as you can from dawn to dusk before assembling to your chosen site for the evening dinner. Play the race to enjoy and share – each of you can treat it as an opportunity to make one another person interested in birds and share the joy.
Try to share your lists through eBird and photographs through any medium like flickr, picassa or facebook - so that others can see what you saw.
Birdwatchers across Kerala (& outside) shall participate in this event - choose a convenient city where you can assemble for the evening of Nov 16th and contact the right coordinator.
Sites could be outside the district or even state.
You are free to make your own team. Each team can be 3 or 4 members; but there should be one good birdwatcher with every team who can identify most of the species around the city. You should name your team with a bird's name - we had several interesting names last time like "Falcons", "Cuckoos", "Flycatchers" etc. Also, make sure you drop in your phone numbers with the coordinators.
If you are a beginner bird-watcher and is not able to find a team, you still can contact the coordinators and they will help you out for finding you a team with a good bird-watcher in it.
The Thiruvananthapuram leg shall be lead by WWF-Kerala while Cochin Natural History Society (CNHS) will lead the Kochi site. Malabar Natural History Society (MNHS) shall be coordinating the race in Kozhikode.
Whom to Contact
Whom to Contact (Site Coordinators) for Team Registration:
Thiruvananthapuram:
A K Sivakumar (WWF-India)
Phone: 94473 86978
Email wwfklso@gmail.com
Kochi:
Vishnupriyan Kartha (CNHS)
Phone: 94464 37410
Email: cochinnaturalhistorysociety@gmail.com
Kozhikode:
Sathyan Meppayur (MNHS)
Phone: 94472 04182
Email: satyanmpr@gmail.com
Whom to Contact (General)
P.O.Nameer
Phone: +91 94465 73106
Email: nameerpo@gmail.com
Praveen J
Phone: +91 94480 39906
Email: paintedstork@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment