A college makes it to the number 2 position on eBird checklist leaders list for Chennai in 2025

This is kindergarten stuff to any patch birder. One cannot amass bird-species numbers at will in their chosen patch. Each patch has built-in factors controlling — restricting, if you like — the bird diversity out there. And patches differ by the degrees of restriction thrust on them by factors that are natural as well as anthropogenic. Largely natural. 

In the light of this reality, certain patches are meant to be laggards in terms of species counts on platforms such as eBird. But they need not stay invisible. The will of those associated with this patch (its residents and habitues) can overcome a seemingly unfavourable fate in a different way — by diligently generating checklists of birds found in the terrain, every day. If multiple checklists pour in, they can hog a corner of the spotlight — that is, in the checklists corner. 

Through perseverance, and even a form of doughtiness, Stella Maris college has made it to number two on eBird’s checklists leaders’ roll for Chennai in 2025.  It is a close second to the leader with the possibility of pipping the number one at the post in the dying moments of this year.

In terms of variety of species, the Stella Maris campus is no patch (pun intended) on Adayaru Estuary. But it is tailgating the leader, which Adayaru Esturary unsurprisingly is. 

On December 27, around 2.15 p.m., when this edition was rushing with winged feet to the press, Stella Maris campus stood with 442 checklists for 2025, with only Adayaru Esturary ahead of it with 451 checklists — check the screenshot going with this report.

“It’s elementary, my dear Watson” — you may not have a multitude of bird species tripping over your doormat, but you can record and report the small number of them that do with a regularity and promptness that can put the glowing orb in the skies, the sun to shame. 

Watching the same set of bird species over and over again is sufficient to understand the essence of all species, even those continents away and never to visit your garden. Kalpana Jayaraman, who retired in May 2025 as head of the department of zoology at Stella Maris College (autonomous), touches upon two reasons for Stella Maris campus being where it is on eBird checklists leaders’ list. 

First, the college got started on campus bird count in 2013. But after two years of forgettable results, the initiative gained momentum — well, the wings of an albatross — in 2015, recalls Kalpana. Salient features of the initiative include training students how to bird, where to bird (around the campus) and where to post the results of birding (eBird obviously). 

The culture of eBirding is so entrenched in the college that it did not skip the campus bird count even during the pandemic.

Kalpana notes students are encouraged to prepare multiple checklists, teaming up in groups of three or four. Each group is also asked to eBird in multiple places across the campus, thereby more pairs of eyes are trained on each section, and nothing avian misses the eye. The current head, S.A. Vidhya is “a regular patch birder, birds from campus almost every day, observes Kalpana. So, the baton gets passed, always.

The other reason, according to Kalpana, is the college has been offering a certificate course — Essentials of Birdwatching — for the last five years. It is open to students across departments.  Among other things, it is impressed upon students that citizen-science data about birds can assist in research and conservation of species.

And these factors, as Kalpana explains, have obviously made a huge difference.