Port Blair, Jan 27: Andaman Avians Club completed the Asian Water Bird Census 5th time in a row since 2017 which is an international water bird census conducted by the Wetland International, Netherland. Before the census, sessions were conducted by the club focusing on the Wetland Bird Identification Techniques and documentation of the data required for the census.
In the Month of January the club conducted an extensive bird census on all the prominent wetlands in and around Port Blair city like Sippighat, Garacharma, Ograbranj and Stewartgunj. A total of 40 participants comprising of the club members, citizen volunteers and staff from the Dept of Environment and Forest were involved in the census. The census was coordinated by Mr. Biplab Bachar and few other club members over a span of one month.
Andaman positioned between the East Asian Australasian and Central Asian Flyway witness arrival of many birds from different parts of the world and previous records show the increase in the number of species every year hence during this census a total of around 2000 birds of more than 65 different species were recorded including few rare visitors like the European Starling, Northern Shoveler, Oriental Pratincol, Black Bittern, Broad Billed Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper, Jacobin Cuckoo and few more.
The census was also conducted in North and Middle Andaman District by the co-founder Ram Vikas and club members Mrs.Asha Rajan and Mr.D Sekhar on volunteer basis.