How the count works

Over three to four mornings, students, faculty, alumni, and visiting birdwatchers walk set routes across the campuses, identify the birds they find, and log counts on the eBird app. For students in zoology and environmental science it is field practice in identification, observation, and careful data recording. For the University it has produced an unbroken run of yearly records on which birds use an urban campus, and how that picture shifts over time.

Two campuses, two eBird hotspots

The count covers the 37-acre heritage campus in the centre of Mangaluru and, since 2022, the AIMIT campus at Kotekar, which is registered as an eBird Hotspot. Because each campus is recorded separately, a single-campus total is always lower than the combined figure for both — the two are not directly comparable.

The campus bird walk

Over four mornings each February, participants join a guided bird walk along set routes on each campus. Working in small groups with binoculars, they identify birds by plumage, size, and call, observe and count what they find, and record every species on the eBird app — with the companion Merlin app for tricky identifications.

Each list follows the standard eBird protocol of at least fifteen minutes of observation, which keeps the records consistent from one year to the next. Faculty from the Department of Zoology act as resource persons, helping newcomers tell one species from another in the field.

Results by year

AIMIT was added to the count in 2022, which is why the earlier years show the main campus only. The 107 species recorded in 2024 is the total across both campuses (36 on the main campus and 71 at AIMIT) — it is not a single-site figure, and the lower single-campus numbers in later years do not mean fewer birds.

The lists mix resident and migratory species of the Karnataka coast. In 2024 the records ranged from the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo to the Little Cormorant, and included raptors and wetland birds alongside the common garden species seen on any campus morning.

eBird hotspot pages

eBird organises records by location rather than by year. On either hotspot page, set a date range to see the checklists from a particular Campus Bird Count.

Why a yearly count matters

A one-off bird list is a snapshot. The same list repeated at the same places, in the same season, year after year, becomes a record of change in the campus's urban bird populations — which species are still present, which have dropped away, and which are new. That long-term data helps map the biodiversity hotspots of the city, informs local conservation decisions, and shows how urbanisation and climate change reshape which birds turn up.

Run on the same two campuses since 2019 — and set within a nationwide count that spans hundreds of college and university campuses each February — the St Aloysius Campus Bird Count also gives each year's students direct experience of how field data is gathered and checked.

The Campus Bird Count is one of several biodiversity and sustainability activities run on campus. See more under Green Campus, and the conservation work of the Department of Zoology.

Frequently asked questions