Big Bird Day 2014

Big Bird Day 2014 in Pakistan was a propagation of the annual event initially started by the Delhi Bird group to celebrate the joy of bird-watching, the first of which was arranged on February 22, 2004. The main objective of this activity is not just bird-watching it also provides for counting the species seen in a particular area. By doing this activity on a fixed day we have better chances of reaching to a more accurate population of at a particular time. More over with such activities we have a p

Big Bird Day 2014

ossibility of re-discovering a particular species which was not seen for a long time. Recording the confirmed sightings across the country on the same day would provide the essential and realistic data which will show the actual diversity of Bird Life in an area. A great advantage of this activity in Pakistan came out to be that it brought Pakistan on the international map of Birdwatchers.

We had an opportunity to go to a place called kala khatai in Punjab close to Pakistan India Border for bird species count. A team of six members was formed by us and we made our best efforts from dawn to dusk to count the maximum birds of the said locality. We were able to spot 52 species in total and another one as a probability.  A summary of confirmed sighting was compiled and submitted to the ebird website http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ Species that we were able to locate were as follows. Graylag Goose Bar-headed Goose Ruddy Shelduck Gadwall Mallard Northern Pintail Green-winged Teal Common Pochard Gray Francolin Black Francolin Great Cormorant Little Cormorant Gray Heron Purple Heron Little Egret Indian Pond-Heron Black-crowned Night-Heron Eurasian Spoonbill Black-shouldered Kite Eurasian Marsh-Harrier Eurasian Moorhen Eurasian Coot Black-winged Stilt Red-wattled Lapwing Common Ringed Plover Common Sandpiper Eurasian Collared-Dove Yellow-footed Pigeon Greater Coucal White-throated Kingfisher Indian Roller Eurasian Hoopoe Long-tailed Shrike Black Drongo House Crow Crested Lark Barn Swallow Red-vented Bulbul Ashy Prinia Common Babbler Jungle Babbler Black Redstart Pied Bushchat Bank Myna Common Myna Asian Pied Starling European Starling Western Yellow Wagtail White Wagtail Red-headed Bunting House Sparrow Nutmeg Mannikin Participants of the Activity: Bilal Qazi
Abel Griffen
Ali Shah
Arthur Anab Shams
Awais Ali Sheikh
Yawar Khan Looking at the current response from our country (Pakistan) we expect a higher turn over from passionate Bird Watchers to join us in this activity. It was a wonderful experience and a great learning opportunity.