Early Bird held a bird rhyme contest to celebrate bird migration, which kicked off in December of 2021 and ran upto January of 2022. We selected four migratory species who move to and fro within and from outside of India, they were – Barn Swallow, Bar-headed Geese, Rosy Starling and Indian Pitta.
Bird rhymes were invited from across the country and in different languages. Soon, our inbox started to fill with poems expressing love and fascination for these birds, their lives and characteristics. From PhD professors to primary school teachers, children to the elderly – we received poems from people from all walks of life. We also received poems in several Indian languages like Marathi, Tamil, Hindi and Kannada, but more on that in an upcoming post!
After the contest was closed, the best poems were shortlisted and put up for a public vote. Those poems that most creatively captured a unique trait or observation about the chosen species, expressed a personal experience were shortlisted for the public voting. Five to six poems were selected per species and scored internally, the 3 poems with the highest score were then put to vote. We kept the poems anonymous to maintain transparency and fairness throughout the voting process.
We want to thank and acknowledge all the participants for their contributions and congratulate the finalists. Here are the final poems, with credits and scoring from the vote.
Species #1: Barn Swallow (a) Shree Dave (b) Dhruv Dave and (c) Shruthi V
Species #2: Bar-headed Goose (a) Ishita Das (b) Krishna Murthy and (c) Neha Arte
Species #3: Rosy Starling (a) Shaurya Nalanka (b) Krisha Modi and (c) Teesha Thomas
Species #4: Indian Pitta (a) Rupsana Pradhan (b) Vidhya Swaminathan and (c) Shaurya Nalanka
A total of 269 votes were registered, and as you can see from the stats – some of them were really close calls! A big warm congratulations to the winners…
| Species | Winner | About |
| Barn Swallow | Dhruv Dave | Home-schooled 14 year old bird watcher who loves writing poems on nature, reading books and lives in a farm in the Northern Western Ghats. Check out his blog – foresthut.in/ |
| Bar-headed Goose | Krishna Murthy | Avid nature lover who lives and works in Bengaluru, Karnataka |
| Rosy Starling | Krisha Modi | Student in standard 6 from Rachana School in Ahmedabad, Gujarat |
| Indian Pitta | Rupsana Pradhan | Project Fellow working on olive ridley sea turtles at Utkal University in Odisha |
These winning poems are published in the 2nd edition of Early Bird’s bookmarks, illustrated by the exceptionally talented Saumitra Deshmukh and Abhisheka Krishnagopal. The bookmarks will be given out as complimentary with every order of Early Bird resources and materials from our online store.
Thank you to everybody who participated and made this bird rhyme contest so enjoyable. Most of all, thank you to the migratory birds for inspiration. They will, of course, continue to bring joy and fascination to our lives, until we see each other next season!