Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) 2023

Context- From February 17 to 20, 190 nations, including India, participated in GBBC 2023.

Key Highlights

• It is an annual gathering of nature lovers, students, and bird watchers to count the birds they see in the areas where they live, work, or study.

Major Findings 

• During the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) 2023, West Bengal reported the most species (489), followed by Uttarakhand (426), Arunachal Pradesh (407), Assam (397), and Karnataka (371). With 349 and 325 species, Kerala and Tamil Nadu occupied the eighth and ninth spots, respectively.
• Birds in India are flourishing in a variety of habitats, including urban and rural areas. India uploaded the second-highest number of checklists, behind only the United States, and the third-highest number of species, thanks to a significant rise in participation across the country.

About the GBBC 

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society launched the GBBC in 1998.
• It was the first online citizen-science project, also known as community science, to collect data on wild birds and show results almost immediately. 
• The GBBC in India is organized by Bird Count India.
• After data were entered into eBird, the largest biodiversity-related citizen science (community science) project in the world, it became a global project in 2013.

Bird Count India

• Bird Count India is an informal partnership of organizations and groups working together to improve our collective understanding of bird populations and distributions.
• It makes it possible to list and keep track of birds in India: from individuals keeping track of their bird lists, to groups of students or birders keeping an eye on local birds, and to large-scale projects across India to record species abundance and distribution.

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