Kole Birders Community Meetup May 2018 Minutes

Kole Birders Community Meetup – 19 May 2018

Thekkinkadu Maidanam 5 PM

Agenda

• Heronry Census 2018:
  2018 surveys strategy. Expecting more helping hands. Plan a Newspaper outreach for public crowd sourcing the information. Need to do it in apt time after nesting & with chicks (Coordinator – Greeshma Paleeri)
  Digitization of past data & Maintaining a GIS layer for each year.
• Grey-headed swamphen (Neelakkozi)Study:
  To estimate the extent of crop damage and calculate the potential loss , caused by Grey-headed swamphen in the paddy fields. Maximum field support will be ensured to the Forestry College students of Kerala Agricultural University. (Nameer PO)
• Breeding Bird Survey:
  Planning to do a trial attempt this year. Need to make methodology from other initiatives.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeding_bird_survey
  https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/bbs
  (Coordinator – Praveen ES)
• Plastic Waste:
  Continuation of community efforts to clean a portion of Kole wetland during pre-monsoon. Planning an event in the next weekend. Establish sign boards in Kole wetlands to create awareness among the public regarding the status and threats of Kole wetland.Need the support from Social Forestry Department. The locations to place the sign boards should be identified with GPS points and a request regarding the same should be submitted to the Forest Department.
  (Coordinator – Gopika)
• Outreach Programs :
  Outreach Programs in Schools and colleges should be carried before the migratory season, so that interested people can be in the field to observe birding activities.
  Organize a well-packed team for the outreach programmes and also prepare the resource materials for the same. The knowledge and the capacity building process can be envisaged from our group activities.(Coordinator – Anith)
• Ootha Campaign:
  (monitoring of illegal ootha fishing in monsoon time. Breeding of fishes starts in June with the onset of monsoon and we need to prepare a request to be submitted to Thrissur Collectorate office and Fisheries department regarding the action against illegal fishing methods. And field monitoring and do surveillance with help of farmers & birders network
  (Coordinator – Manoj K)

• Aam (Mango) Hunt
  Collecting native mango seed and preparing a nursery with the help of Nedupuzha NEST. Need a Sponsor for (1000ns) seed growing cover and mobilize volunteers for a half day for the efforts. All peoples are requested to collect indigenous mango seed from surroundings.
  (Coordinator – Ajith Johnson)

• Monsoon Rainwalk:
  In July planning a rain walk at palappilly (outskirts of Chimmini Wildlife Sanctuary)
  (Coordinator – Abdul Gafoor)

• Birding trip to Nilgiris, Western Ghats:
  After monsoon, planning a birding trip to nilgiris. Cost will share individually
  (Coordinator -Nishad)

• Website:
  Need to take advantages of web technologies and need to develop applications and data portal.Need to do initial research and start account in github
  (Coordinator – Rajana Rj)

• Tree City Project:
  Need voluntary support Tree mapping effort in Thekkinkadu Maidhanam using openstreetmap. Its a pilot project and need to expand to a city level and our Kole Wetland mapping in future. Interested people can contact Manoj Karingamadathil for more details.

• Community Blog Portal:
  Need to encourage members to post content in blog.kole.org.in

Attendees

1. 1. Joseph Chittilappilly
   2. Anith Anilkumar
   3. Prasanth Sachindranath
   4. Sumesh
   5. Aravindan C
   6. Gopi Warrier
   7. Praveen Es
   8. Jothi Pk
   9. Manoj Karingamadathil
   10. Gopika Varrier
   11. Greeshma Paleeri
   12. Dr. NISHAD PM
   13. Anagh
   14. Amanudhay
   15. Rajana Rj

Thekkenada Evening Birding – Checklist

Big Flock (500+) of Malabar Starling, 5 Black-hooded Oriole, 100+ House crow, Little Swift, White-throated Kingfisher, Black-crowned Night-Heron are the highlight. 20+ species total.
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S45847603