Chhimeki Chara play online

Chhimeki Chara, an offline free app, helps you identify and count the birds that you can see and hear in your neighborhood.

It is made for the all-Nepal Neighborhood Bird Counts organized by Bird Conservation Nepal (Birdlife Nepal), FriendsofBird and their partners at central and district level.

The app is for enthusiastic, occasional as well as one-time bird watchers. It focuses on only 100 birds to avoid that beginners get drowned in complexity and too many names. If you want more details and also birds that occur farther away from the human environment, you can always consider the more elaborate Merlin and eBird apps, although eBird doesnt work yet for the Nepal Neighborhood Bird Counts.

Start. When you open the app, you will be asked to identify your district. Then, you will see three buttons. One for counting and identifying birds, one to view the bird lists you have made and one with announcements and information about the Neighborhood Bird Counts, related websites and credits for the bird photos and sounds.


The Neighborhood Bird Counts are held at least once a year:

- Follow media, app announcements and social media to know the dates for the Bird Count

- Count birds in your neighborhood, preferably from home, during only half an hour

- If you see the same bird(s) a few times in that half hour, only count them one time

- Click Save & Exit when you are ready.

- Go to your lists and click Upload. It will be uploaded as soon as you have internet access.

- Sharing is anonymous, only the district name will be asked

- Only one list can be submitted per device per event.

- Afterwards, find your districts and Nepal results on the related websites and social media

- You can use the app all year for your own benefit, but we have not decided yet whether we will process uploaded data outside of the Neighborhood Bird Counts


Bird identification help:
If you do not know a bird you saw, you can click Help Identify at the top of the counting page. It will ask what you saw, e.g. colors, size and few other details. After you click the details, you click Filter results and the app will show a number of birds that match your criteria, and you can choose. If no bird matches your criteria, you can adjust your criteria or enter unidentified bird, writing the things you saw in the notes. You can always get extra help with identification by submitting the observed details or possible photos or sounds (also those done with mobile phones) on bird ID-sites, like the facebook group Bird ID Nepal. What bird is that?"

The most important Neighborhood Bird Count, in winter, syncs with Cornell Universitys world-wide Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) and the garden bird counts held in various other countries. Through these events and the app, it is hoped that more people will start to enjoy watching birds, even if only for half an hour per year. The assumption is that more people watching and counting birds is good for the people, for science and for nature conservation. For the initial events, local schools, clubs and organizations will be mobilized and coached on how to promote the event and mobilize interested people to participate.