Bird observations during the month of August

‘Sri Lanka Birds’, web based data entry system for Sri Lanka completed another successful month by the end of August. An analysis of data entered by ‘Sri Lanka Birds’ members for the month of August is provided in this brief report. The analysis is based on the data downloaded on 14th September 2009.

Membership
New members 10
FOGSL warmly welcomes new members to the ‘Sri Lanka Birds’ community. FOGSL hopes they will enjoy the system while contributing towards the conservation of Sri Lankan birds.

Observations
Total Number of Observations 1714
Number of Species 149
Number of Endemic Species 22
Number of Proposed endemic Species 7
Number of migrant species 9
Observations of Wire-tailed Swallow, which is vagrant to Sri Lanka, at Kanthale tank and Nilaveli Beach by Nadika Hapuarachchi are noteworthy records.

Nesting records
Number of observations 16
Number of species 8
Species (Black-throated Munia, Brown-headed Barbet, Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Little Cormorant, House Crow, Red-vented Bulbul, and Oriental Magpie Robin)
Red-vented Bulbul and Brown Hawk-owl were also reported in breeding stages other than nesting.

Mostly recorded species (No: of observations)
Red-vented Bulbul (67)
House Crow (65)
Common Myna (60)
Yellow-billed Babbler (54)
White-bellied Drongo (48) and Common Tailorbird (48)

Top five users (No: of observations)
Newton Jayawardane (659)
Nadika Hapuarachchi(313)
Rahula Perera (221)
Chinthaka Kaluthota (157)
Nirama (126)

A total of 40 locations were visited during August by ‘Sri Lanka Birds’ members. Highest number of observations was made at Ragama (519) as in many previous months. It is important to notice more visits to the Eastern province, which was rarely visited by birders in earlier months.

Visit the login page of ‘Sri Lanka Birds’ www.worldbirds.org/srilanka to see current statistics that shows the number of field visits, number of observations and bird species, as well as the number of users registered in the system.

FOGSL highly appreciates the contributions of members towards the conservation of birds through this initiative.