Making
Birds Count
The
growing intersectionality of animal, human and artificial intelligence in
Citizen Science
Eisha
Sarkar
Independent Researcher and Citizen Scientist
1.0
INTRODUCTION
Birdwatching has been an important part of
human evolution. The early hunters-gatherers searched for eggs and fowl for
food. Bird songs woke them up at sunrise and their cries and squawks warned
them of predators on prowl. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, artists and
inventors gave wings to their imagination and designed flying machines that
later paved the way for modern-day airplanes, paragliders, parachutes and even
rockets. Since Charles Darwin founded the theory of evolution after watching finches
in the Galapagos Islands in 1837, people have gone far and wide with thick
notebooks to document birds and their behaviors.
A birdwatcher might list the birds in a
notebook and keep a guide book such as Salim Ali's The Book of Indian birds handy. While expensive telescopic lenses
and binoculars make birdwatching a delight, they do come with their own
restrictions of weight and making the field too narrow. They’re great for
photography and studying details of stationary birds but not for counting all
the bird species one may find in a given area. At the end of the day, birders
still have to rely on their intuition, gut feeling and impulses to be able to
watch birds. Some of the best wildlife trackers in the world, such as the
Bushman tribe in the Kalahari desert in Botswana-Namibia, do it without any
sophisticated equipment. (Foster, 2020).
Observing and learning from birds was more
than just a hobby until rapid urbanization, glass-fronted concrete offices and
indoor work meant people didn’t have the time to watch birds anymore.
Gradually, birdwatching became limited to the enthusiasts —
ornithologists, students, hobbyists, amateur naturalists, photographers,
documentary filmmakers and researchers.
When people were forced indoors because of the
COVID-19 pandemic, urban birding and bird photography became popular pastimes
among residents. There was a 16% rise in the number of species spotted per
birding trip during March to April 2020 as compared with the same period in
2019. The effect was evident in 20 densely populated cities, including
Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Puducherry. (Malhotra, 2022)
Powered by eBird, one of the world’s largest biodiversity-related science
projects, founded by Cornell Lab of
Ornithology, ordinary citizens were able to record their bird sightings
with the help of just an app on their smartphones. To help them identify birds,
with their pictures, sounds and calls, they had the aid of another app by
Cornell Lab, the Merlin Bird ID. The
Merlin app Sound ID listens to birds in the vicinity and shows real-time
suggestions for who’s singing. Even visually-impaired people can use this app
to identify bird songs and count the birds. How’s that for accessibility and
inclusion! Merlin also displays how many times a bird has been spotted by the
user. It gives an indication of what lives around places the user frequents the
most.
At the heart of science is curiosity. Someone
has a question about the world around them. It may come from a need to live a
better life for themselves and their more-than-human communities. So they
design an intervention, an experiment, to try to answer that question, create
knowledge, and activate that knowledge to affect change in their lives and the
lives of their multispecies kin. Everyone should have access to this endeavor
and should receive the support they need for this endeavor. (Lorenz and Lepenies, 2023) Citizen
Science platforms such as eBird are a great way to build communities that can
help understand the world better and design interventions that can help protect
this planet from further damage. eBird provides evidence that for birds,
information on observer effort and completeness of species lists can be
collected whilst maintaining high participation. (Johnston, 2021)
2.0.
PEOPLE: FROM NICHE TO CITIZEN SCIENCE
At the time of writing this article, 923,654
eBirders from around the world have identified 10,718 species of birds and
submitted a total of 85.33 million checklists. This phenomenal bank of data is
available to researchers, policy-makers, environmentalists, urban designers and
data-enthusiasts worldwide. This is what citizen science should be: Easy to
use, accessible, measurable, data-driven, appendable and shareable. This data
can be used for Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to map trends in population
and migration of species.
3.0
PLANET: KNOW WHAT IS LIVING AROUND YOU
The term “population” only refers to human
residents in a country, state, city, town or village. In order to find
solutions to problems of space, humans clear vegetation to construct apartment
blocks. That’s one part of the problem: The habitat destruction. The other part
of the problem is that no one knows the animals that live in those habitats.
According to Birds of Gujarat, there are 236 species of birds in Vadodara
district. The area around Navrachana University, Navrachana International
School Vadodara and the Bhayli canal is a biodiversity hotspot. On a given day,
anywhere between 8-18 incidental sightings of birds is possible within a span
of 3-10 minutes.
Some of the species that were spotted as a
part of this ongoing research between August 2022 and October 2023 include Bank
myna, common myna, Indian pied starling, Indian peafowl, spotted eagle, painted
stork, little cormorant, Indian pond-heron, black drongo, White-throated
kingfisher, intermediate, cattle and great egrets, spotted, laughing and
Eurasian collared doves, Indian white-eye, red-wattled lapwing, Oriental
Magpie-Robin, common tailorbird, Brahminy starling, Rosy starling, rose-ringed
parakeet, spot-billed duck, lesser whistling duck, blue rock pigeon, house
sparrow, red avadavat, Asian green bee-eater and blue-cheeked bee-eater, rufous
treepie, red-naped ibis, jungle babbler, wire-tailed swallow, barn swallow,
black kite, common iora, Eurasian hoopoe, scaly-breasted munia, little swift,
Asian koel, red-vented bulbul, white-breasted waterhen, spot-breasted fantail,
Indian robin, Eurasian moorhen, purple sunbird and gray francolin. There are
many more than these 48 species. These observations were included in The State
of India's Birds 2023 report that was drawn from data uploaded to eBird to
assess the distribution range and the abundance trends of Indian birds. Based
on these measures, the report categorizes the conservation status of 942
species into High, Moderate and Low Conservation Concern. (State of India’s Birds 2023)
Very rarely the bird count is exactly the same
on two successive days. There is always a change: a couple of pigeons less, two
more doves, the common mynas and Bank mynas were exactly the same, the murder
of crows had a few new members, the egrets are missing three... Humans are
predictable and often boring because we have created clocks and routines, rules
and regulations and social norms that are often cast in stone. Nature always
surprises.
The species that were sighted and reported while traveling in a car at 30 Kph on eBird in October 2023
Recordings and identification of bird calls at Navrachana International School on Merlin Bird ID on separate days in December 2022
4.0
CASE STUDY: Data collected by citizens on their daily commute to work or school
points to trends in occurrence of birds and changes in their habitats
(i).
Objective:
The objective of this case study is to find
out if data collected on eBird through incidental or casual observation while
travelling or commuting regularly can be used for identifying or mapping trends
for particular bird species. This case
study is part of an ongoing research on the occurrence of bird species in
Vadodara’s rapidly-changing urban landscape.
(ii).
Procedure:
● Observation was made while travelling along a
4 Km route from O P Road to Navrachana International School campus during
school drop and pick up timings viz, 9:00 AM and 12.30 PM for a period between
14 August 2022 to 25 October 2023 and an 9 Km route between Navrachana
University Campus to Rajmahal Road via Diwalipura and Jetalpur Road between
9:10 AM to 9:30 AM for the same period.
● The recording time periods were in two phases:
○ Mornings: 8:40 AM to 9:43 AM
○ Afternoons: 12:10 PM to 1:24 PM
● The species were identified visually or with
the help of Merlin Bird ID and Salim Ali’s The
Book of Indian Birds and recorded on the eBird checklists.
● Errors in identification were flagged off by
eBird reviewers and deleted by the researcher
● The eBird data was downloaded for the purpose
of this particular research on 25 October 2023 in the CSV format, a total of
4064 rows of observations on an Excel sheet for the period of time in
consideration
● The observations were categorized as: Casual
Observation, Travelling and Stationary
● Data was sorted using Excel tools to keep to
the track and time of this particular study and eliminating any other locations
and timings
● Three birds were observed for the purpose of
this particular study: The urban ‘pest’ Rock pigeon (Columba livia) (Rathod
2017) and two different species of waterbirds, Red-wattled lapwing (Vanellus indicus) and Eurasian Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). (Ali 13th Ed 2002) The waterbirds were
selected because of the presence of the Bhayli canal on the route.
● The location of the habitats were plotted on
Google Earth
● The changing environments around the habitats
were documented through photographs
(iii).
Observations:
(a).
The occurrence of red-wattled lapwing and Eurasian moorhen are marked with blue
and red pins respectively within a 2 Km radius from Navrachana University
(b).
The habitats and the occurrence of the three bird species
Rock Pigeon or Feral Pigeon (Columba livia)
First sighting: 14-08-2022
Last sighting: 25-10-2023
Counts per trip: 70
Found in all urban habitats and near cultivated fields. Sightings throughout the year.
Red-wattled Lapwing
(Vanellus indicus)
First sighting: 16-08-2022
Last sighting: 23-10-2023
Counts per trip: 4-5
Found in cultivated areas and open fields near water. More sightings during monsoon and winter.
Eurasian Moorhen
(Gallinula chloropus)
First sighting: 01-09-2022
Last sighting: 21-09-2023
Counts per trip: 2-3
Found in water bodies or in fields inundated by water during monsoon. No sightings in the dry season.
(Pics of birds from eBird)
(c).
New construction disturbs bird habitats
Red-wattled lapwings in an open field
Lapwings avoid dug-up construction sites
As buildings come up, lapwings give way to pigeons
(Pics by Eisha Sarkar)
(iv).
Inference:
The data collected while commuting on this
particular route shows three major trends:
- The
habitats of the waterbirds are diminishing as new buildings come up.
- The
biodiversity is decreasing because of rampant urbanization in the area.
- The
pigeon population is increasing as they adapt quickly to human
environments.
(v).
Conclusion
This study points to the diversity that exists
and gives an indication of the species that may be affected by the rapid
urbanization of the area around Navrachana University. Data recorded by
citizens travelling or commuting for work or school can be used to track
occurrence in urban bird habitats.
Data is like clay. It can be moulded into any
form. For the purposes of mapping abundance and trends, eBird emphasizes that
stationary data collected within the period of three to four minutes is ideal.
However, when the frequency of travel along the same route is very high,
regular recorded observations made during the same time of the day can give a
strong indication of the trends. Data collected from frequent travellers along
the same route might be a more valuable input than an infrequent stationary observer. This research supports the validity of data
recorded through incidental observations by citizen scientists going about
their everyday lives — while commuting, walking their pets, morning
and evening walks, yachting, fishing, waiting in the school pickup queue, etc.
Urban environment, with its concrete jungles,
recreational parks and gardens of private premises provide nesting and roosting habitats with
additional food supplies provided by man. (Rathod
2017) With every new construction that has come up in the area around the
Bhayli canal area, there has been a decline either in the number of birds or
the number of species. This is why bird counts are important. And counting each
bird, even if it’s just a pigeon or a crow, can help researchers track the
changes in the habitat.
(vi) Recommendations:
● Create
more collaborations between scientific organizations and citizen scientists: When more ordinary citizens get into
collaborative science projects there will be greater understanding within our
cities of how much one needs to do in protecting biodiversity. Citizen science
enables data generation at all levels; from the hyper-local to the global.
There is a need to bring in more collaboration between scientists and citizen
scientists in order to improve the data that is recorded so that it can be used
for analysis. While eBird tries to do this through webinars and workshops, it
largely caters to the audience in the global West and much less in the global
South.
● Stop
feeding pigeons: When
people settle down in new apartment blocks, there is a steep increase in the
number of pigeons. They adapt quickly and are often fed by eager residents.
Other species such as sparrows start dying out. Thus starts a sparrow campaign
where everyone's feeding sparrows and their numbers treble in a couple of
months. Some other birds that were already living there start dying out because
they cannot compete with the growing population of sparrows. Remove humans from
the feeding chain and nature will bounce right back. Human intervention is
necessary but there is a need to learn when to step back and let the animals
be.
Feeding
pigeons leads to disproportionate increase in the already huge population of
the birds in the city and other species start dying out because they cannot
compete (Pic by Eisha Sarkar)
6.0 LIMITATIONS
OF CITIZEN SCIENCE
Citizen scientists are not scientists. Most
are ordinary people with other day jobs who dabble in weekend science projects
or have a passion for wildlife and nature. Many are happy with checking off
birds on a list on an app. The ability to conduct an analysis of that data and
draw inferences falls on the shoulders of scientists and researchers. The data
citizen science generates is enormous but very raw. Also, people with the
specific knowledge may not document their observations in a format usually used
by scientists. Many bird photographers, for example, do not keep a record of
birds they see on eBird. Yet, they have valuable evidence of the species they
document through their images that may be put up on photography sites such as
Flickr or Getty Images or on social media such as Instagram and Facebook. It
becomes extremely difficult for scientists to cull through thousands of images
to get what they might use for a particular study. The more citizen science
apps become commonplace and easy-to-use, the greater it will be to generate
accurate data for scientific research.
Wildlife tech apps also help bring communities
of scientists, naturalists and amateurs together to help understand and protect
the planet. Unfortunately, collaborative science projects in this part of the
world are still underdeveloped. Also, the lack of mobile accessibility in very
remote areas of the country may lead to problems in tracking and recording
species. Take the case of Merlin Sound ID. It's only in the last three to four
years that Merlin has been able to pick up and identify sounds of birds in
tropical countries. An observer might not check X on a species on eBird (it
means it's present) because they couldn't identify its call with the Merlin
Bird ID. There will be errors in observation but as with anything else,
practice makes one a keener birder. The more often one visits a particular area
and gets acquainted with the residents and the visitors, the seasons and the
environmental changes, the less likely one is to make a mistake. Still mistakes
happen and that's why citizen science data needs to be vetted before it is
used for critical policy-making. Still,
it is better to have something to work with than nothing at all, especially in
urban habitats.
7.0
INTANGIBLE PROFITS AND NEW FRONTIERS
Post-pandemic, there has been a shift in the
way we look at the planet, health and the economy. When some of the wealthiest
countries in the world were brought to their knees by COVID 19, India and
Africa managed it well enough to contain the deaths. When people were forced
indoors, in spite of having money in their bank accounts, places with parks and
public spaces which allowed for social distancing enabled their citizens to
have better mental and physical health. Nature nurtures. The best ideas have
often come while walking or canoeing or riding, not while sitting at the desk.
If someone hadn't watched birds, we would not have been sitting in an airplane
today. If we don't protect birds and their habitats today, our future generations
may not get the benefits that we have because of them. There's the intangible
profit in the future that we fail to project today.
8.0
CONCLUSION
The wildlife tech space is growing. Merlin
Bird ID and eBird are centered on birds but there are so many kinds of wildlife
that should be measured. Unfortunately, there are very few apps for other
animals. The iNaturalist app still begs for citizen scientists’ attention. Aza
Raskin, who is the creator of the ‘infinite scroll’ that keeps us hooked onto
our mobile phones, is also the founder of The
Earth Species Project where they are building machine learning models to
support and deepen ongoing research into the behavior of other species and
advancing conservation efforts on the ground. As more collaborative players
come into this exciting space of wildlife technology, the prospects of citizen
science will keep on increasing. No two humans are the same. No two birds are
the same. When technology will help us communicate with non-human species,
we’ll empathize with them and protect them better.
9.0
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Ali, S. (2002) The Book of Indian Birds Thirteenth
Edition (Oxford University Press)
- Malhotra, R. Bird sightings soared in Indian cities
during the 2020 lockdown. (Nature India) June 6, 2022
- Samarpan,
A. (2008) Birds of India including
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Wisdom Tree)
- Rathod
Jagruti, Deshkar Sonal and Padate Geeta (2017). Diversity of avifauna in Urban City, Vadodara, Gujarat.
Biolife. 5(2), pp 224-231. doi:10.17812/blj.2017.5212
- SoIB
(2023). State of India’s Birds,
2023: Range, trends, and conservation status. The SoIB Partnership.
Pp. 119.
- Lorenz,
L and Lepenies, R. (2023).Contributions
of Citizen Science to the Sustainable Development Goals: Is Transformative
“Global” Citizen Science Possible? Citizen Science: Theory and
Practice, 8(1): 42, pp. 1–9.
- A
Johnston, WM Hochachka, et al. (2021) Analytical
guidelines to increase the value of citizen science data: using eBird data
to estimate species occurrence Diversity and Distributions
10.0
WEB REFERENCES
- eBird
https://ebird.org/myebird
- Cornell
Lab of Ornithology https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/
- Foster,
C. My Octopus Teacher (Netflix) 2020
- Raskin,
A. The Earth Species Project
https://www.earthspecies.org/what-we-do/technology
- Birds
of Gujarat
https://birdsofgujarat.co.in/district_bird_list.php?list=Vadodara
- Charles
Darwin and HMS Beagle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Beagle
Just a month after I made this presentation, Making Birds Count - The growing intersectionality of Animal, Human and Artificial Intelligence in Citizen Science at the Second National Conference on People, Planet and Profit at Navrachana University School of Business, the red-wattled lapwing has lost one habitat to construction and her count in the other one is down to between 0-2 in a trip. The number of pigeons have gone up threefold to 210 in a trip. That's because people still feel pigeons need to be fed. Remove yourself from the food chain and the birds will do just fine.
#birds #habitats #urbanecology #ecology #citizenscience #ebird #birdcount #ornithology #cornelluniversity #merlinbirdid
