How do you track something as shifting and ephemeral as global bird migrations? Use the might of the great British twitcher [bird watcher], that’s how.

BirdTrack is an online citizen science website, operated by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) in partnership with the RSPB, BirdWatch Ireland, the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club and the Welsh Ornithological Society that allows birdwatchers to record the names and numbers of birds seen in a specified location anywhere in the world.

BirdTrack’s community of 34,000 active users has, to date, uploaded 1.1 billion entries of data, logging everything from species location and behaviour to birdsong and mating behaviours, says the BTO’s Scott Mayson.

“We get simple entries that say ‘I saw X bird at X location’; but then we will get really precise references such as that a male was singing to a female a specific ordnance survey grid reference and it was a mating song. In our world, though, all records are useful.”

The data – which feeds into similar data inputs from the European Commission-funded Eurobird portal – allows the real-time mapping of bird migrations across the European continent and, crucially, charts how these avian flows are changing year-on-year.

“We find that some birds, such as the willow warbler, are migrating further northwards,” Mayson explains, “and that species such as the chiffchaff and blackcap which used to winter on the continent are now wintering here.”

BirdTrack’s vast data pool, Mayson adds, acts as an early warning system that species might be under threat, whether that’s as a result of global heating, pollution or of habitat destruction. “We now know that bitterns, a kind of small heron, are dwindling as their reed-bed habitats [thickly vegetated and waterlogged zones between water and land] have been drained; so there are efforts to restore these habitats that have come directly from this data.”

It’s thanks, too, to BirdTrack data that the RSPB is running mass surveys of species that appear to be under threat, including the lesser-spotted woodpecker and fabled turtle dove.

Andrew Sims, 74 and based in Lincolnshire, has been a twitcher since the 1970s and an enthusiastic BirdTracker for the past eight years. Sims enjoys a daily birding walk along the same looped route from his home and religiously submits his sightings into BirdTrack’s app as he strolls. “By submitting at the same spots every day through the years I know I’m doing my bit to help record population trends,” he says. “It feels like a service as well as a pleasure.”

Little egrets, rare when he began twitching, are now a common sight, Sims says, as his much-loved woodpeckers have slowly disappeared from his patch. He hopes that data such as his will make an argument for government interventions in climate change. “I love that BirdTrack gives you a personal record of your sightings over time as well as the bigger picture,” he adds.

An obvious risk with mass citizen science projects is spotter error: what if an unschooled birder identifies a chaffinch for a sparrow; say? BirdTrack, says Mayson, flags up an entry if a user chooses a species that is unexpected in an area at a given time of year, to make such mis-identifications less likely.

BirdTrack has seen its usership increase 23 percent since the pandemic as we feel a renewed appreciation for outdoor environments, and their feathered residents. BirdTrack has also realised, in this strange time, the potential of its data to protect both avian and human populations from disease. “We can look at the movements of reservoir species such as geese, for example, to predict where the next outbreaks of bird flu might happen,” Mayson adds.

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and Eurobird

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It was October 2012. A team of conservationists visited a remote dam in Nagaland to study the unique migration behaviour of the Amur falcon that roosts here for a month every year on its way from its breeding grounds in Mongolia, to Africa. Instead, when they reached the Doyang reservoir in Wokha district of Nagaland, they found birds being massacred en masse. Trees on the banks of the reservoir were covered in nets that trapped them by thousands. The air was thick with the smell of their meat being smoked. Local tribes, who have a long tradition of hunting (not just for the table, but also as a means of livelihood) sold the meat of the falcons as far as in Dimapur, over 120 km away. Many confessed to earning over Rs 20,000 [US$270 or GB£200] selling falcon meat in the one month that these birds stopped in Wokha to roost and recuperate from their long flight. Chillingly, they referred to it as an annual ‘harvest’…

The team from Conservation India that witnessed this massacre was led by Bano Haralu, ex-TV journalist and founding trustee of Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust, NWBCT. While some suggested financially incentivising locals to not kill the falcons, Haralu had a different take: “I’ve always believed that the conservation of our wild spaces and species must be its own reward,” she says. “By rewarding locals with money for every falcon they saved, we’d defeat the purpose of conservation…”

Instead, she launched a campaign with local volunteers to alert the wildlife community, as well as the state government about the falcons’ grisly fate in Pangti, Pungro and Okhtosto – the three villages in Wokha district (Nagaland) where the falcons roosted. “Next, we started working to instill a sense of pride that this mysterious bird flew from so far to visit our land every year,” says Haralu. NWBCT initiated a comprehensive programme to change local attitudes towards hunting with the support of the government, as well as leading conservation NGOs. Weekly Eco Clubs for children, one-on-one conversations with each and every villager and advocating with the powerful village council yielded positive results.

Finally, in 2013, just before the beginning of the October migratory season of the Amur falcons, the Pangti Village Council announced a ban on their trapping and killing. The state government instituted stiff penalties for falcon hunters. And that year, Nagaland earned the title of ‘falcon capital of the world’ from the international birding community.

Today, Pangti attracts birders and conservation across the world during the annual Amur falcon migration. The erstwhile hunters of the area have become birding guides who enthusiastically tell guests about the miracle of the Amur falcon’s migration and that the raptor’s five-day flight across the ocean from Nagaland to Africa is the longest non-stop oversea flight in all birds. Meanwhile, as many as a million falcons visit Pangti every year. When they take flight together, the birds block the sun and shadow the skies, providing an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy the spectacle of avian migration. “We’re training locals to set up home stays for birding enthusiasts in the Amur falcon roosting hotspots,” Haralu says. “Now that the local community can see how the Amur falcon can become a source of livelihood for them, they have developed a long-term stake in its conservation.”

Author: Geetanjali Krishna, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust, NWBCT

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