May 10th 2015, was celebrated as Global Big Day, when, all over the world, birders tried to document as many species of birds as they could in 24 hours. 

However, in India, we also  observed Endemic Bird Day on the same date. It’s not every country that can count a lot of endemic birds; we are lucky to have many of them!

What are endemic birds? Like any other species of living creatures, endemics are those which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. (we take the south of Asia as the area.)  The tally in India, this year, was 567, which puts it ninth in the world list… quite an impressive number of birds found only in the Indian sub-continent.

Here’s a great poster by the noted wildlife humourist and cartoonist, Rohan Chakravarty, which shows us many of the endemic birds that can be found in our country.

Some of the endemic birds can be found in the state of Karnataka, too; here are the photos I took of a few of them:

Yellow-throated Bulbul (Ramnagara)

Grey Junglefowl (Bangalore outskirts)

Flame-throated Bulbul (Hampi)

Malabar Parakeet (Kabini)

White-cheeked Barbet (quite common in our city)

Mottled Wood Owl (Hulimangala, on the outskirts of Bangalore)

Since we are lucky enough to have some unique species of birds (and, indeed, many other creatures) around us, it would be a wonderful thing if all of us could do our bit to let these creatures thrive and multiply, and prevent them from going the way of many other species which have become extinct.