City birder finishes 'Big Year' with record spotting of 1,128 species

While birding at Jamnagar on the New Year's eve, Mumbai-based wildlife biologist Shashank Dalvi spotted a Common Ringed Plover just an hour before dusk.

While for others it might have been the end of a typical birding day, for him it meant being the first Indian to not only successfully complete the prestigious "Big Year" challenge taken up by birders, but also record a whooping 1,128 birds in a calender year.

The "Big Year" is an informal competition initiated in the United States amongst birders to check who can record the maximum number of birds in a span of one calender year where birders follow the 'Birder Code of Honour' meaning that they will not cheat.

In 2013, the 32-year-old decided to take up the challenge in 2015. For this, he also had to quit his job and the entire 2014 was spent planning the itinerary.

"I travelled to some of the most beautiful birding hotspots in 22 states and union territories like Andaman and Nicobar throughout the year and visited four places, including Nicobar islands, Kashmir, Desert National Park and Sela Pass in Arunanchal Pradesh, twice. I began on January 1 from Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary close to Mumbai by spotting four species of Owls," shared Dalvi, an Andheri resident who is known as one of the most experienced birders in the community and has a Masters degree in Wildlife Biology from WCS-NCBS Bengaluru. He played an important role in not only exposing the mass huntings of Amur Falcons in Nagaland along with few naturalists, but also initiating several key conservation plans for the birds.

The highlight of the "Big Year" for Dalvi was that he managed to spot over a dozen bird species across the country that have just been recorded only a couple of times by birdwatchers so far and he even visited Nicobar islands where he spotted some species that were never recorded.

"I got to record Longbilled Bush Warbler that was last recorded in 1977, Purple-throated Sunbird and Arctic Warbler that were the second recording ever in India and birds like Sooty Gull that has been only recorded five times so far," he said, adding that while he photo documented several of the birds he also was accompanied by various birders from the area he visited most of the times.

Dalvi also informed that there were also several challenges for him, including to ensure that he is at the right place at the right time for some species. "There are around seven species of birds that are passage migrants and travel through the Northwest part of the country only and can't be seen in any part of the country stopping for just couple of days. To spot them one has to be present at the right place at the right time and fortunately, I could spot such birds like Spotted Flycatcher, Red backed Shrike, Greater whitethroat and European Nightjar. Meanwhile, some birds are only found around the borders of the country like the Tibetan Lark can only be seen in eastern Ladakh while Chinese Francolin is spotted only in Manipur," he stated, adding that similarly to find some species like Petrels, Skua, Shear Water and others he even had to venture deep into the sea.

Speaking about how he prepared himself for this one year of birding, Shashank — who completed his education at Bhavan's College — shared that being an experienced birder it was not difficult for him though the whole exercise is extremely taxing as one is constantly travelling.

"Birding in the northeastern states has always been my stronghold. Hence, I managed to spot two third birds of my total bird count in these states itself and since i had to give up my job to fund my trips, I took several birding trails to various parts of the country. Also, as soon as my friends from various parts of the country came to know about my "Big Year", they helped me by providing accommodation as well as transportation," he said.

He added that he could only visit home only twice in the entire year and to ensure he could be with his family he invited his wife and other family members to different parts of the country he was visiting for bird watching.

However, as Dalvi is in Mumbai now, taking a break from all the travel he did in 2015 he has his task cut out. "One of my main aims to do the "Big Year" was to understand the bird distribution across the country along with understanding by getting a first hand experience of the kind of habitat destruction and other issues that are plaguing some of the most rare and endangered ones as well as the fairly commonly seen birds and now with all the information and documentation that i have carried out i am planning to initiate several conservation programmes as well across the country," he informed.

There are about 1,300 species of birds in India (including all the vagrants) and roughly there would be around 1,170-1,180 regularly occurring species in India, he added.

The Big Year
Oregon-based birder Noah Strycker, who took up the "Big Year" challenge in 2015, travelled to 41 different countries and created a record by spotting 6,042 species of birds and broke the earlier record of 4,341 species set in 2008 by Alan Davies and Ruth Miller. He was recently in Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary to spot the Forest Owlet

A Hollywood film, too, was made titled "The Big Year" in 2011 starring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson and was based on the non-fiction book The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession which was written by journalist Mark Obmascik.

Some interesting birds spotted by Dalvi
Nicobar Jungle Flycatcher
Great Nicobar crake
Central Nicobar Serpent Eagle
Sooty Gull
Pale legged leaf warbler
Arctic Warbler
Purple Throated Sunbird
Chinese Francolin
Long billed bush warbler
Booby
Shear Water
Skua
Storm Petrels
Petrels
European Nightjar
Greater White Throat
Rufous Tailed Scrub Robin
Rufous Tailed Shrike
Red backed Shrike
Spotted Flycatcher