The annual Great Backyard Bird Count, which creates a list of species seen in the city and elsewhere in the country, has got underway and will end on Monday.
Birdwatchers said the bird count, which started on Friday, is a global event.
Over 450 species were recorded till Sunday evening in Bengal and the organisers are hoping the numbers would cross 500 by the time it ends on Monday night.
“The Great Backyard Bird Count is being held for several years now. It is always held in February, which is why it gives an opportunity to document the presence of many winter migrants that are still in the country and in our state,” said Sujan Chatterjee, secretary of Birdwatchers Society and regional coordinator of the Bird Count India, the organisers of the count.
Winter migrants are birds that migrate from colder locales to warmer ones during winter. There are trans-Himalayan winter migrants that fly hundreds of thousands of miles to spend the winter here.
“On Sunday, as many as 180 observers from Bengal took part in the count,” said Chatterjee. He said that having the bird count at the same time every year will, in the long run, give a picture of how things are changing and the trends.
Destruction of habitats, the absence of birds that used to come before and the arrival of new birds, all will be registered in the process.
“Climate change as well as rapid destruction of birds’ habitats are threats that may prevent some species from coming to Kolkata or its surrounding areas,” said a birdwatcher.
To many birdwatchers, the count is like an annual festival. The celebratory mood that is generated increases participation, which means more areas are covered and more species recorded, said birdwatchers.
A list of birds seen in a day is submitted on the eBird platform, created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology of Cornell University of the US, once the day’s count is over.
Many birdwatchers rued the destruction of habitats around Kolkata. They said a large number of wetlands in Rajarhat have been filled and the number of birds seen in these places has drastically dropped.
The area around the site in Baruipur where the district headquarters of South 24-Parganas will come up is among the few remaining sites close to Kolkata where birds can still be sighted, said Chatterjee.
Among the significant sightings in Baruipur this year was Lanceolated Warbler, a brown bird with distinct black streaks all over the body.
The website of eBird describes the Lanceolated Warbler as a bird “difficult to pin down”. The bird spends its winter months in “tangled and densely vegetated habitat”.
Souvik Roychoudhury, a resident of New Town, sighted and clicked the Lanceolated Warbler in Baruipur on Saturday morning. Roychoudhury left his home at 4.30am.
All other team members left the site around 8.45am but he stayed back and was paid for his perseverance. The bird came out at 9am. “The bird was being seen there for the last two weeks,” he said.
Black-browed Reed Warbler was another bird sighted in Baruipur. “Between Friday, when the count started, and Sunday, 88 species were recorded in Baruipur,” said Chatterjee.