Oriental Bird Club

The Oriental Bird Club (OBC) is a UK-based club which exists since March 1985 to advance ornithology in the Oriental zoogeographical region. Its aims are to encourage an interest in wild birds of the Oriental region and their conservation, promote the work of regional bird and nature societies, and to collate and publish information on Oriental birds.

The OBC's geographical area of coverage ranges from the Indus River, Pakistan, in the west, through India and south-east Asia to Wallace's line, eastern Indonesia, in the east, and from Mongolia, north-east Russia (east of 90°E), and Japan in the north, to the Lesser Sundas and Christmas Island in the south. This vast area embraces tropical and temperate forests, outstanding wetlands, and grasslands providing habitat for over 2800 bird species, many of them little known.

Another important function of the growing membership of the OBC is that it helps to amplify and collectively express opinions on important issues such as those connected with conservation, in the oriental region.

The Oriental Bird Club is a UK registered charity number 297242.

Oriental Bird Images

Oriental Bird Images (OBI) is a collection of images of birds of the oriental region that are collated into a database called The Image Database of the Oriental Bird Club. The database is an initiative of the Oriental Bird Club (OBC) that was begun in mid-2002. The effort is to build as complete a website database as possible of photographs of bird species found in the Oriental Region. All images in the Database have been provided by the photographers free-of-charge in furtherance of the aims of the OBC. The photographers retain the copyright to their images. As of February 2015 there are more than 90,000 images of over 2850 species covering about 98% of the species in the Region. This is proving to be a useful reference tool for ornithologists and birders. 1450 photographers have contributed to the database. (Source: OBI website).

OrientalBirding

"'OrientalBirding"' is an email discussion group managed in association with "'Oriental Bird Club"'.

"'OrientalBirding"' is an online forum for news and discussion about wild birds, birding and conservation in the Oriental region. "'OrientalBirding"' was launched in July 1999 and has become a community of over 1800 subscribers from all over the world including many active birders living in the oriental region.

How OBC helps to conserve Oriental birds

Over 300 Oriental bird species are designated by BirdLife International as threatened due to forest destruction, wetland drainage, hunting and trade. Conservation of these species is often hampered by a lack of knowledge. Oriental Bird Club supports conservation work in the Oriental Region by encouraging studies of birds and their habitats. Through the generous support of members and corporate sponsors, the OBC conservation fund has now supported over 250 projects in many oriental countries, primarily run by local people. More than £200,000 has been invested in conservation in the region since 1984.

Projects funded by the OBC Conservation Fund in 2011

AEC Award and WildWings Award Beijing Birdwatching Club: Surveys for Jankowski's Bunting in areas predicted using satellite imagery

WildWings Award Iwan Londo: Conservation of Christmas Island Frigatebird in Jakarta Bay, West Java, Indonesia

Small Grants of £1,000–1,500

• Oinam Sunanda Devi: Conservation of Globally Threatened Migratory Bird species of Loktak Lake, a RAMSAR Site in Manipur, India. (This grant is financed by a generous donation from OBC member James Goodhart).
• Mohammad Naeem Awan: Status of the Vulnerable Western Tragopan (Tragopan melanocephalus) in Jhelum Valley, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan. (This grant is financed by a generous donation from OBC member James Goodhart).
• Prativa Kaspal: Farmland bird study in Koshi, east Nepal and Lumbini, central Nepal. (This grant is financed by a generous donation from OBC member James Goodhart).
• Sayam Choudhury: Assessing current status of the Black-bellied Tern in Bangladesh.
• Prashant Shinde: Saving the White-rumped Vultures (Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary, Raigarh District, Maharashtra, India).
• De-pin Li: Raising Awareness for the Conservation of Birds in Mt. Cangshan National Nature Reserve.
• Surya Purnama: Javan Lapwing (Wagler, 1827) Vanellus macropterus Wet-Season Survey In Muara Gembong, West Java.
• Suman Sharma: Forest Fire Risk Modelling and its Impacts on Birds Community in Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal.

Publications

The OBC provides a platform for scientific/research publications as well as popular articles by its members. The journal Forktail is published once a year since October 1986. BirdingASIA is a magazine that is sent out to all OBC members twice a year since June 2004. OBC has also published a checklist of the birds of the region in 1996, An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region.