Seventh Kerala Bird Race to be Held on Nov 10th in Major Cities

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Kerala Bird Race, Kerala’s biggest mass bird watching event, will launch its seventh edition on Sunday, 10^th November 2013 in three major cities of Kerala – Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. Unlike the yesteryear editions, it will be non-competitive this year as per the information from the Bird Race organizers. 

Birders participating in an earlier edition of  Kerala Bird Race
Photo Courtesy: K. Ananthan

During the event, birders in small groups will compete to spot and identity as many birds as possible within the time between dawn to dusk from a 100 km radius in the three cities. The teams in each city will join together for dinner at a single place and will compare the performances and discuss the findings. In the yesteryears, the team with the most numbers of spotting used to bag the title. However, this year the event is in non-competitive mode.

Bird Race in non-competitive mode

To promote more public participation, the seventh Kerala Bird Race is held in a non-competitive mode, with no prizes for the winners. “The idea is to see how many birds can be seen in a day by all the teams put together. 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”, says a correspondence from Kerala Birder, an online birder group in Kerala.

The highlight is that the participants will be looking for birds, not for prizes, hint the organizers. According to Sunjoy Monga, an organizer of the event, It will still be a race but all participants will be winners. "We are trying this format with some of the cities. The idea came about after discussions from findings wherein we found little bits of over-enthusiasm for prizes . So in a way, this format will hopefully help provide more factual results since no one is going to come first. By making it non-competitive, we will also know the real passionate from the I-want-to-win types ", he said.

However,  participants may find surprises, not just the feathered ones in the field. As per sources close to the organizers, all participants will receive a special souvenir that is being prepared. All children between the age 6 - 12 are likely to receive a complimentary copy of book on birds for children. 

The race is organized annually to enlighten the public about bird watching and to introduce the beginning birders to the religion of serious birding, to keep the species of birders away from extinction. Bird Races in the country began in the year 2005 as a 100 participant event in Mumbai. According to birders, It has grown into India's largest birding event with 16 cities and more than 3500 participants.

Kerala Bird Race had been attracting birders and fresh hobbyists from all over the state and -in fact, even from outside the state. “We sometimes have participants from Kanyakumari district joining us at Thiruvananthapuram”, says the organizers. Last year, the race witnessed about 350 participants.

Green groups in action

The race is being held with the active co-ordination of major green groups in the state. While the race in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram will be organized and coordinated by the WWF-Kerala team, Cochin Natural History Society will organize it in Cochin. Malabar Natural History Society will be the coordinators of the event in Kozhikode. 

According to the organizers, anybody interested can take part in the race with their own team, provided one in the team is familiar with almost all of the bird species found in the locality. However, if a beginning birder with no connections wants to participate in the event, he or she can contact the coordinators to enroll as part of a team. The event is organized with the support of Kerala Birder along with The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) and Yuhina Eco-Media.

Cory’s Shearwater spotted in South Asia, off Northern Kerala Coast

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The Northern coast of Kerala is gifting unexpected surprises to birders for the last one week. In a straight row, the state has witnessed five rare species getting reported from here for the first time, - Caspian Plover, Pectoral Sandpiper, Common Swift, Roseate Tern and Cory’s Shearwater, the last one making the first record for the whole of South Asia, according to experts.

Caspian Plover (Image Credit: Dr. Khaleel Chovva/Kerala Birder)	Pectoral Sandpiper (Image Credit: P C Rajeevan/Kerala Birder)

Pectoral Sandpiper, the second record for India

The winged surprises started coming in right from September 19^th, when a group of birders spotted a Pectoral Sandpiper at Madayippara, a hillock in Kannur district of Northern Kerala. This turned into the first report of the bird for the state and the second for India, when the birders consulted ornithologists including Harkirat Singh Sangha, who is the only person in the country to see and report it before, from Harike Wetlands in Punjab.

The next in the line of surprises was the Caspian Plover. The bird came to the delight of a group of birders carrying out a pelagic expedition at the Muzhappilangad beach in the Kannur district on September 21st. Among the 30 odd  pelagic bird species they recorded, two important names were Pectoral Sandpiper and Caspian Plover. Caspian Plover was the first record from the state. The bird, according to sources with MNHS and Kerala Birder who organized the expedition, was earlier reported from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu also.

However, what was in the store was yet more surprising.

Cory's Shearwater spotted in the Northern Kerala Coast. It is the first record of the bird from South Asia
(Image Credit: Jafer Palot & C. Abhinand Image Courtesy: Kerala Birder)

The Cory’s Shearwater shocker

Based on information from locals, the birders including a scientist at the Zoological Survey of India on September 21^st, went to exhume a dead bird which the locals have buried the last day. On closer inspection, it turned out be a Cory’s Shearwater, which made it the first record, not only for India, but for the whole of South Asia.

It was first thought to be a dead specimen of a Streaked Shearwater. “The lack of any white on the face and thick bill with black tip eliminated Streaked & pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwaters and it became clear that this has to be a Cory's Shearwater”, says the birder team that went to check the bird.

“We thought the identification was a cakewalk; however - it turned out that the two races of Cory's Shearwater (C. d. borealis & C. d. diomedea) are now considered full species (Cory's & Scopoli's Shearwaters) by all authorities and a much better photograph of the underside primaries and biometrics are necessary to ascertain the id.”,  said Kerala Birder sources in their online forum. Later, the measurements and the under wing plumage confirmed it as Cory's C. borealis., they said.

Huw Roberts, an ornithologist, has reportedly confirmed that the bird is regularly seen on the Western coast of Arabian sea in the Persian Gulf. However, it shall be the first record for the South Asia, says birding activists in the state.

Common Swift and Roseate Tern sightings

Roseate Tern (R) off the coast of Neeleswaram
(Image Credit: Raju A K /Kerala Birder)

The rally of first records was just not going to stop with that. While returning to shore after the second day of the pelagic bird survey on September 22^nd, the survey team encountered a group of terns off the coast of Neeleswaram. However, one bird in the group was different from others since it was in breeding plumage, says the birders.

“While we were returning back to the land we had seen a flock of pale terns feeding very near to the coast and initially called out as Common Tern. The Tern in breeding plumage was standing out not only because it was in breeding plumage, but looked extra-ordinarily beautiful for a Common Tern”, says the birders while sharing their experiences in the online forum Kerala Birder. 

Later, close examinations of the photographs revealed that it is the enigmatic Roseate Tern, the fourth in the list of first record for the state within the week.

Common Swift recovered from Neeleswaram
(Image Credit : Praveen J/Jafer Palot/Kerala Birder)

The last in the line was a common Swift, which was recovered some 40 km off Thaikadappuram in an exhausted state. The bird later died of exhaustion, despite the attempts to keep it alive. According to birders, Common Swift is regularly sighted in Maldives, the neighbouring island nation in the Indian Ocean, but makes it a first record for the state.

Thus, the days September 19^th to 26^th have made the most surprising days in the history of bird watching in Kerala. “The one week from 19th - 26th September has been quite fabulous for a narrow strip of coast in N. Kerala - turning up five new species for Kerala. I don’t think this has ever happened in the history of the state.”, says Praveen J, a prominent ornithologist and activist of Kerala Birder, in a note in the online forum.

The specimens of Cory Shearwater and Common Swift are deposited with the Zoological Survey of India repository at Calicut, Kerala.

Lately, pelagic bird surveys in the Kerala coast has been harvesting new species records for the state. An year before , on 30th September 2012, a Pelagic bird survey team near Neeenkdakara harbor recorded Red Necked Phalarope for the first time in Kerala. Just two months before to it, in July 2012, Pelagic bird survey teams have spotted Streaked Shearwater off Kannur coast, another first record for the state. 

South Kerala Pelagic bird survey records Red Necked Phalarope for the first time from Kerala

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The first ever South Kerala Pelagic survey has added a new member to the pelagic birds of the state by spotting  Red Necked Phalarope, a tiny wader found in open sea,  near Neeenkdakara harbor on September 30^th. According to a report circulated by Kerala Birder, an online birdwatchers’ group who was instrumental in organizing the pelagic survey, a juvenile Red Necked Phalarope was spotted very close to the boat used by the team on the first day of the survey. It is the first record of the species from Kerala.

        Red Necked Phalarope found off the coast Neendakara
Image Courtesy: E Kunhikrishnan

However, the team suspects that the actual sighting could be three, since two pale waders seen on the same day could also belong to the same species. “Two more pale waders seen earlier on the day could have been this species”, said Kerala Birder sources. Red Necked Phalarope usually found in North America and Eurasia but migrates to tropical oceans for wintering.

Apart from the rare bird record, the survey team has also spotted two Brown or South-Polar Skua. According to the team, there have been four instances of reporting large skua from Indian coast earlier. Moreover, the birders assume that the Skua spotted during the survey are not vagrants, but regular visitors, since the sea was very calm at that time. “The two birds were present during calm seas, indicating these are not probably vagrants but regular in Arabian sea.” says the report prepared by the team.

Other sightings

During the survey, the team has also spotted Flesh-footed Shearwater, Streaked Shearwater, Arctic Skua, Swinhoe’s Storm-petrel, Wilson’s Storm-petrel, Bridled Terns, Sooty Terns and Masked Booby birds.  Streaked Shearwater spotting is just the second time from Kerala, the first being two months before in July during the West Coast Pelgaic sea bird survey conducted off the coast of Kannur.

The South Kerala Pelagic survey was carried out on 30^th September and 1^st of October by surveying pelagic bird population off the coast of Neendakara and Vizhinjam. Birders from Malabar Natural History Society (MNHS), Travancore Natural History Society (TNHS) also attended the survey.