India's first common bird monitoring system launched

India's first bird monitoring system for common birds was on Tuesday launched by Mumbai-based Nature Forever Society (NFS), an organisation working for the protection of common sparrows and other common fauna. The system is based on a website, allowing users from across the country to participate in what NFS founder Mohammed Dilawar terms as a "Citizen-science venture". "After creating a user ID on the system, the user will be able to provide data such as number and types of birds in his or her locality and from the individual contributions of users across the country, the system will be able to map our geographical distribution of birds," claimed Dilawar. "We should have had bird monitoring systems in the country, at least 30 years back. In west, there are more than 100 years old bird monitoring programs," he added. Claiming the launch of the online programme as an "ornithological landmark," Dilawar told IANS that "a lot of answers are going to come out from this system". The programme has been designed by a technical team from Jaypee group. Currently the programme maps 18 common birds such as House Sparrow, Common Hoopoe, White-throated Kingfisher, Green Bee-eaters, Black Kite, House Crow and Rose-ringed Parakeet.