GoingWild and Kolkata Bloggers, while brainstorming, just clubbing the concepts of a birding trek and a blogging workshop together to check if people would like it. And the result is amazing! Thus this blog post.
Birding – Blogging Trek | GoingWild LLP | Kolkata Bloggers
What’s a birding trek?
A trek where people walk from point A to point B, pretty much like any other trek, feel the nature around, pretty much like any other trek. But in this case, a birding expert guides you, stop at places and shows you different birds. If you have even a slight interest in birds, this might interest you.
What’s in a blogging workshop?
A workshop where the guide tries to put forward to you, in a consolidated way – methods of blogging effectively and better. The workshop covers the basics of a blog, understanding the target group (audience), defining the aim of your personal blog and the success parameter, creating content (blog posts), understanding the basics of social media and search engine optimisation to generate an audience for your blog.
Why should a birder blog?
As a person who is just introduced to the world of birding, bird watching and bird photography, I feel the community needs more people who are dedicated and vocal about the issues related to conservation, problems related to poaching, illegal selling and other malpractices related to this field. And they should not restrict themselves to just Facebook, where organic reach is diminishing each passing day.
Thankfully, even today blogging exists. People could still Google for free and access specific blogs which have relevant content. Social Media and blogs together form the best way to create awareness in the digital space. And blogging specifically helps the cause reach out to more people if it is relevant and relatable to the mass. Thus, blogging.
Why would you need a blogging workshop?
Because just creating good content and sharing it on the social media isn’t enough. You need to understand what you want to do with your blog and how quickly you can earn money using your blog content and the online popularity. If bettering yourself as a blogger is not your intent, this blogging workshop isn’t for you.
Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush | Shot with Tamron SP 160 – 600 G2 lens.
About the organisers:
GoingWild LLP is perhaps the best tourism startup in Eastern India. Their founders – Soumyajit Nandy, Tamanud Mitra and Dibyendu Ash are distinguished personalities in their field of work. They’re operational for half a decade with very less negative reviews. On the other hand, they were shortlisted by the MSME Government of West Bengal for the finals of “Egiye Bangla”, the business reality show. They’ve also organised one “Only Sunderban Tigers” exhibition in ICCR Kolkata named “Dokkhinrayer Biswa Jatra” and now, preparing for more such extremely niched and distinguished efforts.
Dibyendu is the birding expert and you got to travel with him to believe in his knowledge. He is also a collaborator to the Director of eco-tourism, Sikkim Government.
Kolkata Bloggers take care of the blogging workshops. As a company, Kolkata Bloggers has worked with The Times of India, International Kolkata Book Fair, Kolkata Literature Festivals, NASSCOM Product Conclave, CII Travel East, Facebook to name a few. It has organised workshops in IIT Kharagpur, St. Xavier’s and 18 other educational institutes of repute in collaboration with the US Consulate General, Kolkata.
Anirban Saha, proprietor of the company, umm, Yours Truly, takes care of the blogging workshops. He refuses to restrict him to any genre. As per the Similarweb statistics, he engages over 20,000 users in a month. He blogs at www.anirbansaha.com.
What did we see?
We conducted our first birding blogging trek during 29 April – 3 May 2017, in Sikkim.
We spotted around 117 species of birds during this span of 3 days, of which we photographed most of them. Even as a noob, I could photograph a lot of birds while I missed quite a few because of my inexperience.
In this post, I’d share photographs shot by Dr. Asim Halder and me.
Eurasian Cuckoo | Shot with Tamron SP 160-600 G2 lens
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Crimson Sunbird | Photograph: Asim Halder
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Grey-hooded Warbler | Photographed by Tamron SP 160-600 G2 lens | Edited by Souranil De.
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White Tailed Nuthatch | Photograph: Asim Haldar
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Himalayan Cutia | You already know what I shot this with!
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Asian Barred Owlet | Photograph: Asim Haldar
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Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher | Thank you, Tamron for the lens.
If you would like to join us for the next birding-blogging trek, fill the form and stay connected. Click here.
Click here to read about my personal experience of the birding trek! Click here.