If all goes well by August, bird watchers, lovers and ornithologists passionate about vultures and painted storks can log onto an exclusive web portal to track the various species, their distribution, places where they can be spotted and even key in data collected by them earlier.
Two portals are being developed by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for bird varieties in India.
Scientists say the aim of creating such exclusive portals is to create awareness among the public about the varieties. "It also creates a platform where data about these varieties collected over the years by many researchers can be digitized and shared for study and research purposes," said SACON director, P A Azeez.
"The portal will be hosted by NRSC's Bhuvan portal, which is considered India's version of google," he said.
The portal will appear as a virtual globe where the locations a particular species is spotted will be marked in red. The user just needs to click on the red dot to know which species is spotted there, where exactly the location is, who spotted it and its scientific name.
"We wanted the public to be more aware of the varieties of birds and their biological activities, so they slowly understand the importance of conserving them," said Azeez.
The team already has an exclusive flycatcher portal which is the first of its kind in the country. Inaugurated in August on National Remote Sensing Day the portal is a favorite among young bird watchers.
A class 10 student, Varsha Rajaram, who studies bird spotting as an extra-curricular activity says she logs on to this portal regularly to learn about a new species and its identification details and background regularly.
The flycatcher portal was set up with details on flycatchers collected by veteran ornithologist Salim Ali himself and published in his book-Handbook of the Birds in India and Pakistan. His data along with data collected by SACON scientists was digitized and loaded into the portal.
In order to make the portal more interactive, NSRC is working on a system where any bird watcher or researcher can log onto this portal and start feeding in information regarding bird sightings and observations done by them.
"This is expected to come through any time now," said SACON scientist in charge of the portal, C Mahendran. "We chose to make the first portal on flycatchers because they are widely seen and identified. We have almost 40 different species of flycatchers in the country," he said. " They are also very colourful and attractive to look at," he added.
Two portals are being developed by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for bird varieties in India.
Scientists say the aim of creating such exclusive portals is to create awareness among the public about the varieties. "It also creates a platform where data about these varieties collected over the years by many researchers can be digitized and shared for study and research purposes," said SACON director, P A Azeez.
"The portal will be hosted by NRSC's Bhuvan portal, which is considered India's version of google," he said.
The portal will appear as a virtual globe where the locations a particular species is spotted will be marked in red. The user just needs to click on the red dot to know which species is spotted there, where exactly the location is, who spotted it and its scientific name.
"We wanted the public to be more aware of the varieties of birds and their biological activities, so they slowly understand the importance of conserving them," said Azeez.
The team already has an exclusive flycatcher portal which is the first of its kind in the country. Inaugurated in August on National Remote Sensing Day the portal is a favorite among young bird watchers.
A class 10 student, Varsha Rajaram, who studies bird spotting as an extra-curricular activity says she logs on to this portal regularly to learn about a new species and its identification details and background regularly.
The flycatcher portal was set up with details on flycatchers collected by veteran ornithologist Salim Ali himself and published in his book-Handbook of the Birds in India and Pakistan. His data along with data collected by SACON scientists was digitized and loaded into the portal.
In order to make the portal more interactive, NSRC is working on a system where any bird watcher or researcher can log onto this portal and start feeding in information regarding bird sightings and observations done by them.
"This is expected to come through any time now," said SACON scientist in charge of the portal, C Mahendran. "We chose to make the first portal on flycatchers because they are widely seen and identified. We have almost 40 different species of flycatchers in the country," he said. " They are also very colourful and attractive to look at," he added.