Many birders like to take part in projects that give purpose to their passion, and, for that reason, atlassing is a favourite of birders around the world. Atlas projects prompt birders to cover their neighbourhoods in more detail than they have before, draw them into other nearby areas they have seldom visited, and give them opportunities to explore regions where every new sighting fills in a potentially important information gap. Since the first one was completed in Great Britain in the 1960s, bird atlases have become one of the most valuable tools for tracking environmental change—a tool that has allowed biologists and land managers to make wiser conservation decisions.

What is a Colombo Breeding Bird Atlas?

Colombo Breeding Bird Atlas (nickname: CBBA) is a systematic survey of all the breeding birds in Colombo and suburbs. Bird experts and bird enthusiasts of FOGSL, and like-minded birders survey the distribution, abundance, habitat use and how birds change their natural breeding behavior in Colombo and suburbs for a complete year starting May 2018. CBBA is fun to participate and the results will provide an invaluable foundation for conserving birds and their habitats and document their special behaviors in the Colombo City.

The CBBA get illustrated by photographers, artists, map-makers and analysts. Detailed maps and graphs will help to show what is behind the patterns of distribution and abundance. CBBA therefore will provide a snapshot of which species breed in Colombo, where they breed, when they breed and what sort of special tactics they used to tackle the city’s challenges. CBBA is designed to be repeated at intervals in the future, so that changes can be accurately tracked over long time periods.

Who Can Participate?

Everybody. We invite all of you bird lovers – of all ages, of all colour, of all religious and spiritual believes, of all political views and of all walks of life to join with us to record where birds nest in our capital – Colombo.

How You Can Participate?

It’s easy. Look around, in your garden, workplace, school, park or in the paddy fields or rubber estate, if you see a bird building a nest, brooding eggs or feeding its chicks please spend few minutes and observe. Please don’t disturb the parents (birds) but quietly observer and identify them. If you can’t identify it we can help you. Visit our FB page and let us know.
Record the location of the nest (nearest town, street and if possible its GPS location), the stage of its breeding (whether building, brooding or feeding), number of eggs or chicks (if you can see it without disturbing the birds), where the nest is placed (a tree trunk, on a flowerpot, in a bush or on ground), the species of tree (if possible), the date of observation and any other information you think relevant.

We recommend you to use eBird smartphone and computer app (https://ebird.org/) to record these information in a second and send to us.

CBBA