CBC 2020 - Kendriya Vidyalaya 2
Since 2017, the Great backyard bird count (GBBC) and Campus bird count (CBC) events turned into popular annual activities at IISER, Tirupati. Both the GBBC and CBC are limited time exercises, and they yield a real-time snapshot of birds from the region. Tirupati, located at Seshachalam foothills, is an ideal place for these limited-time exercises. A large number of lakes, scrub forests, hillocks, and the forests of foothills contribute to the diverse birdlife of Tirupati. To explore the landscape and maximize the data collected, this year, the Citizen Science program of IISER supported other institutions in Tirupati with Campus bird count – 2020.
Kendriya Vidyalaya School (KV2)
A group of 22 students, along with their teacher Ms Navjot Kaur participated in the campus bird count. On the 16th of February, everyone met at the campus at 7.00 am for the exciting count. As usual, the enthusiastic and energetic youngsters spotted everything that flies. The campus is surrounded by large patches of openland with scrub vegetation, thorny thickets and dried grassy patches. Walking on the road around the campus, children thoroughly enjoyed watching drongos, bee-eaters, babblers, and bulbuls in open and closely with binoculars. Amid all the other birds spotted, a lone red-collared dove is an exciting find as it is the first record of the species on ebird from Chittoor district.
An Ashywood swallow basking in the sun was not deterred by the excitement of the children. While the kids are pointing hands in every direction asking for identification and information, one of them claimed a “big bird” perching on a wall behind where we are all standing. As we slowly turned around the bird flew down into the thickets, probably scared by so many hands pointing at it. I had a glimpse of tail and underparts and suspect that it is a Sirkeer Malkoha. After spending some time observing all the scrubland birds, we quickly moved towards the lake behind the school.
The waterbody is decently big, spread in tens of acres with sewage seeping into it from one corner. The garbage dump at the edge of the lake along with the line of the Prosopis julifora (“tumma chetlu” in telugu) has been recently dozed and leveled exposing a mix of wet soil, dead thorny vegetation and garbage. Probably, this attracted plovers, moorhens and kingfishers that are taking refuge in the thorny tickets.
Children were so excited to see Openbills, Whistling teals, Kingfishers, Coots, Moorhens and Jacanas. In two hours of birdwatching, a total of 63 species of birds are observed and recorded from the KV-2 school campus. Everyone is excited and wanted to do explore the campus and surroundings more. A complete checklist from this activity is available at https://ebird.org/checklist/S64568035.
For telugu names of commonly seen scrubland and wetland birds, download these posters.
