Indian Courser

Bibliography of South Asian Ornithology

2011-11-17T09:42:00.001+05:30

I am thrilled to announce that my bibliography on South Asian Ornithology went online yesterday! The team that made is possible comprises Suhel Quader, Anush Shetty, and Pavithra Sankaran, with inputs from Sainath Vellal.

Please visit at: www.southasiaornith.in

University of Hyderabad: of birds and a menhir

2011-08-02T14:51:00.000+05:30

I begin scratching in my notebook no sooner we’re parked, the birding stuff taken out, and the cars locked. The ears direct my pencil, more than the eyes; the birds, of course, are always around, either visible, or audible.

Our large group troops behind today’s guide, Prof. KSR, meandering through a filigree of vegetation, towards a promised water body. I lean against a boulder and jot my tenth species, when a newcomer peers at the notebook and timorously enquires whether all those birds were seen today! His disbelief at my affirmative is expected. Most rookies do not even register birdcalls when they begin, considering them a part of background noise. He staggers away, following those who have vanished behind a screen of thorny foliage. The noisy chatter and laughter from that direction is discouraging, disturbing. Unwritten birding law frowns upon such audible excess and sudden violent movement. Breaking it is counter-productive for the birds are scared off by loud talk. But its okay I guess, for this is a day of fun birding.

I too move towards the hullabaloo and arrive at an opening in the vegetation that widens into the Gundla-kunta, a small shallow pond, with floating vegetation, and partly bouldery shores. Our group stands on some flat rocks, on its north-eastern corner. With the sun behind us we have perfect light for birding. There are a number of species actively engaged in feeding, and other activities. It is an idyllic scene. Well, almost.

This little glittering wetland, so endearing to the birds that use it, is also a dumping ground for sundry items of garbage, and a popular graveyard for that peculiar symbol of mindlessness, the shattered beer bottle. The place is littered to the gills. Empty bottles float, open-mouthed, all over the dimpled surface of Gundla-kunta. Shards of glass glint on the shores and the rock we are gathered upon crackles with it underfoot.

This act of utterly avoidable irresponsibility shocks and angers me, for it is an indignity meted to that which I revere. This was, after all, an institution for higher studies. Educated people, yes, even in the tenets of a civil society, live and study here. Does this fact absolve them of civilised behaviour and its collective, social responsibility? The wanton defacing of a public place needs a special germ of callousness to start it. The first bottle which is brought out into this pristine (read devoid of garbage) landscape, packed with care lest it break, and leak what it holds, once emptied of its contents, becomes a burden to take back for proper disposal. Chucked or shattered it simply catalyses similar future indiscretions. Such a sacrilegious act of despoliation soon assumes the dirty patina of a regular dump. Subsequent visitors see this ‘convenience’ rather than the natural beauty of the landscape beyond, which it besmirches. And before one realises what is happening, the blight takes hold.

Should not a society that permits unrestricted access to public places also demand that such areas be left in the same, clean state they were found? The self-discipline that achieves this is a social prerequisite, and really small change, in terms of the effort required, for the solace of unblemished landscapes. So what does one do to remedy the scourge? To my mind, the only solution that might last is the involvement of the perpetrators to clean their own backyard. Yes, in this case, finding the polluters might be difficult. So involve the entire campus. Let the USP of the exercise be pride in a clean campus! If this involves the teaching staff, local celebrities, environment groups, etc., so much the better! Do this every six months and I am sure it will make a huge difference, a marked shift in attitude, instil a sense of belonging to the place.

While we stand for an hour and watching birds, the excitement and enjoyment is palpable—and why not? We spot over 25 species from that one spot. Besides their ‘normal’ activities of flying around, feeding, swimming, and perching, there is some hilarious act-like-something-one-is-not, to confuse the smug birders. There are personal highlights for me—a family of dabchicks comprising fussy parents, and three precocious black baubles cavorting in the water; both species of jacanas, in different parts of the pond; and, the rare darter (two!) planing overhead in absolute abandon.

Now there are those who will argue that this diversity illustrates the indifference of wild nature to the minor callousness of devil-may-care citizenry. But that is just a senseless, myopic argument, from those who are happy to accept the visible, immediate present, as the only reality. Unfettered pollution, let it be clearly understood, ultimately wipes out entire life-cycles found in such ecosystems, big or small, gouging out the soul of a landscape, leaving behind a pauperized state of barrenness. A ‘wilderness’ overtaken by the detritus of an insensate community is a sad reflection of the state of a collective conscience, an objurgation of the right to call ourselves sentient beings.

Prof. KSR leads us northward, circuitously, through a fallow green field of rough ankle-high grass, to the earthen bund of Gundla-kunta. As soon as we scramble up its sloping side, an aura of an ancient presence, an antiquity, not so much geographical, as civilisational, is sensed. The tamarind trees leaning away from the slope are old. He says there is archaeological evidence from this very campus of millennial human occupation, even of the cultivation of millets, that much-ignored cereal. It is quite likely that this very kunta irrigated nutritious crops for several generations of Dravidians. To desecrate and pollute sacrosanct ancient sites of historical import is as sacrilegious as graffiti-scrawled monuments. What conscience permits such a strain of cultural defacement?

The atmosphere of the kunta, is so different from the bund. Angled sunlight shines on its surface. Sounds are muted under these brooding old trees, on a ground carpeted with several seasons’ leaf-fall. Wonder borders awe, and a strangely elating joy laces with deference, as though we have chanced upon a tiny gem of a marvel here, which each of us, from the glint in our eye, seems to carry away.

The walk to the nursery tosses some more birds in our path. Jaunty-tailed Indian robins, electrifying wagtails, a mysterious lark, a pair of amorous munias, and a fervently pleading plaintive cuckoo.

Tea follows, in the university’s canteen, and then, near the entrance to the campus, Prof. K leads our motorcade into an abandoned plantation of lanky-boled, thinly foliaged trees. Parking the vehicles we walk to what turns out to be the most amazing sight of our trip—at least for me: a four thousand year old granite menhir, a pre-Iron Age monolith to honour the dead. It would have taken gargantuan brawn to make it stand, or remarkable ingenuity. We shoot pictures of the group around this gigantic tombstone. Then we disperse.

Walking back to the cars, we are appalled at the lamentable repetition of litter. All around this historical monument, this irrefutable evidence of four millennia of human life, lie the same shameful broken bottles, epitomising the complete erosion of respect for culture and history, of a complete lacking of any sense of propriety that collective responsibility demands, of the lack of even a modicum of shame at negating personal margins of social obligation and behaviour.

I depart with mixed feelings: exaltation in the sense of perspective that history and archaeology provide; wellbeing from a morning spent outdoors chasing birds; utter shame at the insensitivity of fellow humans. But towering over all these emotions is a sense of rage—and the realisation that ultimately, an education only leads the horse to water.

Bikram Grewal interviews me …

2011-06-13T22:41:00.000+05:30

This interview by Bikram Gewal was first hosted on www.kolkatabirds.com. The text below contains three questions, and answers, that were deleted from that website.

Question: How did a young boy from a business family in Hyderabad get involved in the world of birds?

WWF was the great trigger. Its Andhra Pradesh representative, late Capt. N. S. Tyabji, spoke about birdwatching in my school, which was an eye-opener, as I did not even know such a term existed! It was also the age of WWF’s posters. They issued a slew of endearing ones of tiger, and leopard cubs, etc. I became a WWF member, enrolled in its Nature Clubs of India movement, and through its newsletters (I still have all the copies) learnt much, including about Dr Salim Ali, and the BNHS. I persuaded dad to buy me Salim Ali’s Book of Indian Birds, which he did, and also made me a member of Bombay Natural History Society! Then I looked at birds through binocs, and was permanently hooked.

Despite my interests seeming an oddity in society, my parents were my anchor and support. I was a sort of introvert, and liked the world of books. Birding too, like reading, is a hobby that can be pursued entirely by oneself, with a great deal of satisfaction. Gradually I realised that birding had enough in it to not just interest me for a lifetime, but was also an avenue for channeling my energies in stuff I am fairly good at, like, research. We are happy humsafars.

Q: You have been at the helm of affairs, for some time, of the Birdwatchers’ Society of Andhra Pradesh. It is a very vibrant group. One of the criticisms about the group is that they do not play an activists’ role. Your comments.

Activism requires a great deal of dedication, knowledge, and time, besides knowledge of the law. It also demands a kind of stability that comes from simple infrastructure like an office (an address), and at least a few people who are constantly available and willing for such work. The membership of BSAP is always in a state of flux. Its main aim is to spread the joy of birding among people. Not activism. It has a varied membership comprising people of all ages, and diverse lifestyles. We were always clear that we would not get into activism but support it from the outside by supplying information about birds and their habitat to both, activists, and the government. There are several committed activist groups out there and they are doing a great job. Lets just say that there are activists and there are birders, and we belong to the latter bunch.

Q: What is your opinion of the current state of birdwatching in India today? How has it changed over the years?

Birdwatching, happily, is in a robust state of growth in India today. The past three decades have seen enormous changes in the way people communicate and learn, through digital technology. The Internet is a great smorgasbord of floating information free for use, available at the touch of a key and the speed of light. This is a metamorphic leap. Increasingly scientific journals and period books are available as PDFs online. Email has brought the entire worldwide community into easy contact. The gathering of information is child’s play, but the conversion of that into knowledge is every single person’s privilege.

The best part of the contemporary scene is the fact that it has truly fledged from the BNHS, and spread its wings across the country. In Dr Salim Ali’s time, anything to do with birds was either equated to the great man, or the BNHS. Not so any more. Scientists who graduated from BNHS or WII have begun small institutions all over the place and are driving research. Amateur ornithology was never stronger in India. Citizen scientists wield notebook and binoculars with great felicity. Suhel Quader has pioneered citizen science through MigrantWatch and SeasonWatch. Satish Pande and his group in Pune are involved in bird surveys, education, species-specific studies, ethno-ornithology, and publishing. C. Sashikumar and his colleagues in Kerala carry out systematic land, and pelagic surveys. Bishwarup Raha’s conservation and education efforts in and around Nashik are laudable. Nitin Jamdar has worked for more than a decade with Trevor Price on warblers. BNHS, of course, continues its ornithological commitments—conservation of endangered species, migratory bird studies, etc. There are so many more I would like to name! Other institutes have sprung up too, doing equally laudable work—SACON, NCF, NCBS, etc.

One amazing phenomenon revolutionising Indian natural history in general, is the resurgence of photography—again an offshoot of the digital age we live in. Whether for pleasure or for scientific documentation, photographers have produced an amazing catalogue of our fauna and flora, as witnessed by portfolios on websites such as India Nature Watch, and Oriental Bird Images. Photographers are combing the country for pictures of the unique and the undocumented. It is a fantastic time for Indian ornithology.

Q: You are the Indian representative of the International ornithological Committee in India. What do they do here in India?

The International Ornithological Committee was recast as the International Ornithologist’s Union in August 2010, during the last International Ornithological Congress in Brazil. Actually, I am an Associate Representative—a person whose name has been proposed for membership, but who is not yet elected, and so has no voting rights. However India has six member ornithologists in the IOU, since many years. Till this change of focus and formation of the IOU, the IOC comprised a body of 200 eminent world ornithologists, and its main work was conducting the four-yearly Congress. Now, having broadened its scope to include different categories of memberships, its objectives and purpose have been substantially enlarged to encompass a wider range of issues, among which are dissemination of information, promotion of international cooperation among organizations, strengthening locally-based research, and reaching out to amateur ornithologists. A fund has been mooted for the first time to meet envisaged expenses.

More than a decade ago there was an effort to form an organization in India, called the Ornithological Society of India (OSI), with Shri Zafar Futehally as its Chairman. Despite several meetings, it petered out. One of its objectives was to try and get the IOC to hold a Congress in India. However, the future of cooperation with the IOU looks bright, and organizations, and individuals should contact them directly.

Q: You attempted (With Ranjit Manakadan) to standardise common and scientific names of the birds of the Indian Subcontinent. Subsequently Tim Inskipp and then Pam Rasmussen came up with their versions. How relevant is your version in today’s date?

Ranjit was preparing a list of English names of birds for the BNHS, and I realised that it was a good opportunity of adding to it the correct, and full scientific nomenclature of each species, thus making it a proper checklist of the birds of India, something that was lacking in such a compact form. Asad Rahmani, Director of the BNHS, agreed that this was a good idea, and encouraged us. Ranjit’s part was preparing the list of English names; mine, of compiling the full scientific nomenclature of each species, including binomen, author, and year of publication. Though I say it myself, I think we produced a neat document that was published in Buceros. It should be updated periodically, for nomenclature and taxonomy are both in constant flux these days due to the revolutionary techniques of studying DNA to determine the status of avian taxa in the phylogenetic tree.

Though Indian ornithologists began using ‘our’ list extensively, the BNHS itself seemed uncertain: their The book of Indian birds by Salim Ali (13th edition; editor, J. C. Daniel) converted all English and scientific names to our Buceros list, while their periodical publications seem to have tilted towards the Grimmskipp names. The Manakadan & Pittie list, as it is known, is in a unique position of adapting to the latest changes quickly, as it is now an online document. Like other countries, India too needs a credible ‘national’ checklist that is monitored and tinkered, and followed by ornithologists and scientific publications in our country.

I believe that the naming game is tourism driven. Birding has become a global phenomenon and the global birdwatcher does not like to confuse bird names. This move towards standardisation has robbed us of localised English names that have been in use for decades, and introduced some hilarious names in their place. In the final analysis, however, I must confess, it is the names given in popular field guides in circulation today, whether Ali, Grimmett et al., or the Ripley Guide, that will prevail.

In the second edition of our list I had written, “Change that benefits everybody is good. But change for the sake of change is another thing. The globalization of bird names impoverishes the unique culture, history, character and literature, the very fabric, of a nation’s ornithological history. Indian English names of birds are as cherished by us as are American English names by the Americans and UK English names by the British.”

Q: Your ‘dictionary of scientific bird names originating from the Indian region’ is personally fascinating to me. Are their many people in India who are really bothered with larger aspects of bird, other than just watching birds?

The meaning of words is a fascinating subject, especially if you are using a name regularly, without knowing what it means. I was always interested in etymology, and when I got a copy of James A. Jobling’s wonderful Dictionary of scientific bird names, it was a great revelation. I realised that there were so many birds that carried Latinised names that had originated from the Indian Subcontinent, that compiling them together would make an interesting document. I scoured the indices of the FBI and Handbook, listed names that sounded from this region. Then I tracked the original papers in search of etymology. Often the meaning was not given, and I had to search various ethnic dictionaries, query friends for suggestions, and trawl the Internet. It was a thrilling journey, and I still consider it time well spent.

The BNHS recently co-published a dictionary of bird names, authored by Satish Pande. I am sure their survey revealed a market for this type of book. But to answer your question, there is an increasing number of birdwatchers nowadays who go beyond birdwatching, by researching various aspects of a bird’s life, or general aspects of ornithology. This is possible because of the humongous amount of information available on the Internet, and the ease of communication that the digital revolution has brought about. Unlike the nineteenth century, when it could take up to six months for ornithological news to travel from Europe to the orient, or vise-versa, today, if a bird is sighted where it has not been recorded before, the entire world knows about it in a second! And ornithology is, after all, an evolving science, and so its history is always gripping.

Q: I had recently the pleasure of browsing through your personal collection of bird books, which must rank amongst the best personal collections. What do books mean to you?

My library is far from representative. It lacks several period works, which are now rare and cost a king’s ransom. I started collecting books on South Asian ornithology when I realised that there were hardly any comprehensive collections in India. I may be wrong here. I know for a fact that my friends Harkirat Sangha, and Rishad Naoroji, collect this genre, and I know that you have one of the finest libraries, but these are not enough, and the more access we have to books on the ornithology of our region, the firmer our foundations for future generations. I try to collect all editions of a book. Over the years books have assumed a huge importance in my life. I spend time with them, I browse them often, I rely on them, and I even simply sit in their company, with a sense of exquisite belonging, and kinship with the authors!

I am a book worm and read across several genres like, natural history, world history, literature, books on books, modern literature, historical fiction, WWII, etc. Books are my constant companions. They never complain, are never tiresome, and when I do not wish to hear them, all I have to do is shut the volume. Books decorate and furnish my room, my living space. I cannot imagine a world without books.

Q: You are India’s leading bibliophile when it comes to birds. Did this obsession grow with your passion for books?

Actually it grew out of my desire for readily available information. When I began birding, two publications contained papers and articles on birds, the JBNHS and the NLBW. The only book in fashion, and available, was SA’s BIB, and the expensive HB. But I realised that fresh information was pouring in constantly through the journals. I began indexing these under species’ names, and area, so I could keep up with new insights. Initially I maintained longhand foolscap sheets, filed alphabetically in a ring binder. Then I graduated to 5”x3” indexing cards, then computers. Somewhere along the way, Tim Inskipp, who incidentally might be the leading ornithological bibliophile for the Indian Subcontinent, advised that my database was shaping into an important archive, and that I should try and include everything published on birds. So everything has gone in, including books, journals, theses, newspaper articles, unpublished reports, Internet reports, etc. I feel that ultimately, a user has to decide what he/she wants from my database.

I have been able to compile this database because of two things. I am a touch typist, and I persevered, despite the hours upon hours spent pouring through libraries and their contents, juggling scientific names, counting pages, and plates, and scouring text and art with a critic’s eye.

Q: Your book “Birds in Books” is one of the most impressive documents I have seen in recent years, what were the traumas and travails involved in the writing and production of the book?

My friend, Ravi Singh, CEO of WWF-India, had often heard me talk about my bibliography, and how I wanted to put it online. Once he told me, “Forget the online stuff. What you need is a book on the shelf.” Frankly, that was what I too wanted, and so I began to think about how my large database could be converted into a book. That I could limit it to just books on South Asian ornithology came to me some time later, and I began working towards it.

Though pretty voluminous, this book was not traumatic, in that it got written over twenty years, as I collected and filed information on bird books. Computer software makes this process seem so easy. So in the final stage, there was no trauma. My friend, Rishad Naoroji, who has published the fantastic Birds of prey of the Indian Subcontinent, introduced me to my publisher Rukun Advani, who readily agreed to publish the book under his imprint, Permanent Black. I was fortunate in my meticulous editor, Rivka Israel, who smoothened the text. But the greatest help I received was from two people. One was Edward Dickinson, in the UK, and the other, Murray Bruce, in Australia. I have had the pleasure of meeting the former, but the latter, never. Murray and I communicated over email, and he shared his knowledge extravagantly with me. Edward took the manuscript on a holiday to Scotland, and worked on it there! Both of them hugely improved the work in terms of accuracy and content.

In a way I was also working on shaky ground. There were no extant bibliographies for South Asia. Those that did exist were family monographs or area specific databases, and either fragmented, or dated. The search for what was published in the interregnum was a fantastic journey.

I also had to learn the art of describing the physical geography of a book, an entire world with its own terminologies, and technicalities.

Q: Tim Inskipp pointed out that the one big omission from your book was the books published by the Zoological Survey of India. What were the reasons for this?

The only reason they are not in is that I left them for the end. That was my mistake. You see whenever I came across ZSI publications in libraries, I was sure that they would be easily available when I wanted to buy them, and that I would enter them into the bibliography after owning copies, from the comfort of home. But unfortunately the ZSI sales office in Kolkata is a dinosaur when it comes to selling their books. I sent several reminders and waited over a year for them to respond, to no avail. And then the book just had to get printed. I decided that I would go ahead, for I did not know when I would get hold of copies. Ultimately I had to request relatives in Kolkata to buy the lot and send them to me.

Q: After a controversial start, INDIAN BIRDS seems to have stabilized under your editorship. What are the problems you face in steering this ship?

It could be said that IB was born as a result of a controversy, but once it was launched, initially as the Newsletter for Ornithologists, we were quite clear about our goal. We wanted to raise the bar of ornithological reporting / writing in India, of course, in the amateur/citizen scientist segment that our publication fitted into. Very soon we realised that we filled an important niche, and that people really looked forward to every new issue. It is now seven years, and IB is doing well on the contributor’s front, i.e., we have a full file, but I would there were more subscribers.

My greatest problem is that I cannot keep up with the flood of articles and papers, and often disappoint contributors with delays. Most are patient, and understanding, but some get restless, which is to be expected.

We had also decided, when we began, that we would assist people with their manuscripts and try to use all qualifying contributions. This is a time consuming business, and at times really painstaking. But ultimately the results are rewarding.

I think that printing full colour issues has paid off, and we at IB have to thank all the generous photographers for this emulatory largesse.

Q: Who are the great influences in your birding life? And how did they shape your interest?

The late Pushp Kumar IFS, who retired as the PCCF of the AP Forest Department, was a man ahead of his time as a forester, and wildlifer. He was a birder par excellence, and I was lucky he steered the BSAP, as its President, and I could learn from him. He was an extraordinary influence.

So was the late Capt. Nadir S. Tyabji, the Hon. Rep. of WWF-India. I learnt a lot from him.

The ebullient Humayun Abdulali was a great influence too. He had a reputation of sorts that was legendary in the BNHS for his purported vitriolic nature, but either it was unfounded, or he never used it on me. I learnt basic things from him: how to file notes on index cards; how to be exact about spelling, and taxonomy, “A mistake in print is almost inerasable”; and how to go to the source of everything I was tracking. Whenever I was in Bombay, he would take me birding, calling up, and stating abruptly, “Free tomorrow to birdwatch? Come to the main gate of the Raj Bhavan, we’re going in!” He would write in longhand, on inland letters, and once wrote to ask, “What were those things flying around on the cricket field?” He had seen this on his TV, while watching a 50-over match between India, and another country. His inquisitiveness was insurmountable.

From the indomitable Zafar Futehally, I learnt more about character, and fortitude, than anything else. I learnt about the dignity of the human spirit and the deep satisfaction of quiet, diligent pursuit of passion.

Edward Dickinson has been a great mentor. He has the singular ability to make you comfortable in the labyrinths of ornithological taxonomy and history. He has the wonderful grace of imbibing one with the confidence to tackle complicated issues of dating names.

Q: What are your plans for the future and what mountains do you have yet to climb?

I have long wanted to place my full bibliographic database online, at the disposal of the birding community, and am happy to tell you that some friends are making this dream a reality. There is no point in sitting on such a lot of information without sharing it. It is also of the nature that requires constant updating, and therefore the Internet is the best option as a searchable database. Keeping abreast with publications on the ornithology of South Asia is a full-time affair, and needs constant attention. I still have to work a great deal on the database, adding keywords, annotations, etc.

Indian BIRDS is an ongoing labour of love, and my goal is to strengthen its subscription base.

I would like to make the BSAP a truly vibrant and contributory organization, whose members are committed citizen scientists and help strengthen Indian ornithology.

I am turning a couple of ideas in my head. Lets see what transpires.

Why I birdwatch

2011-05-11T13:09:00.000+05:30

The water floats about 400 ducks. It is still, and a dark grey-blue, under a perfectly clean January sky. Four of us are huddled behind a mound of earth, on a man-made earthen bund. Large-canopied tamarind trees line it along the water’s margin. We have come to this little wetland to count birds, driving from Hyderabad for two hours, the landscape pouring away from our speeding car; and now this sudden stillness is very welcome. Its grounding elemental stability, and the warm sun on our backs are comforting.

As we settle into the basic mathematics of a census, the southern sky is suddenly stitched with uneven lines of ducks. Skeins approach this lucid earth’s eye, floating like motes from one end of its curving firmament to the other, turning in tight formation, tugged back by the instinctive bond with their swimming brethren, as though an elastic band were stretched to its maximum, and then relaxed. Twice they circle the water at breakneck speed, with a completely mad effortlessness; then two peel off, making for the water. A cohesive tension in the flock breaks, and the entire lot plunge in comic pell-mell. Their sharp descent rips aloud the blue sky-cloth, and in the enveloping silence, the tearing sound of wind forced through curved feathers is an astonishing aural delight.

Is there a palpable joy in these returning anatids? Open-mouthed I gape as one, then three more flip in their descent, turn-turtle, belly-up in their plummeting fall through ether, up-righting last minute to belly-flop in the water. It’s a remarkable feat of contortion. While the body rotates upwards, twisting at the neck, the head is held straight to retain orientation. Why would a bird do this? I grope for logical answers; then settle for anthropomorphism—for the sheer thrill of it. Happiness may not, after all, be an entirely human privilege.

From the moment I spot them, through their fantastic airmanship, the magical rending of sky-cloth, to the jubilant bushel splash of sparkling water, I sit mesmerised by the beauty of the moment. It burns indelibly on my mind’s eye, etches itself upon my heart, and I think, this is reason enough to watch birds.

The red-headed pochards bob like cork in the eddies their landings create. There is great excitement and agitation in the manhandled raft of Anatidae. Drakes rear up in the water, stallions on hind legs, flailing wings vigorously. This flotilla of punks, dressed up in luminous orange headgear, and candy pink beaks is riveting. Gradually peace returns on the waterscape, and ripples plane out. A jostled breeze sighs through a million tamarind leaves. Wind bourne come the whistles of wigeon, flaunting their sandalwood paste-smeared foreheads in the distance.

It is a wonderfully idyllic setting. In the lee of the bund stretches a square patterned paddy tapestry, embroidered with glinting still waters. Its miniature dykes patrolled stealthily by rapier beaked pond herons, its sky-reflecting water frogeye dimpled. Forlorn toddy palm clumps stand abandoned in scattered disarray across this quilted landscape.

Screaming palm swifts tail each other, swing around fronds, arrow from clump to clump, boomerang back on slender fluttering wings. Green bee-eaters catch prey with an audible snap of mandibles, and float down to a telegraph wire to dismember a bee of its business end, or disrobe a butterfly roughly, tearing off its wings, tossing the naked body down their gullets. The buoyant colourful wings, plucked and discarded, bereft of direction, abandon themselves to the wayward breeze.

Bullock carts clatter past to a village at the end of the dirt road. A skeletal bare-footed toddy-tapper pedals his spare bicycle towards lanky trees, in the crowns of which he has tied a neat cluster of earthen pots, to collect oozing liquid that gradually ferments into toddy. He travels light; loincloth, turban, circle of climbing rope over one shoulder, to hoopla around the thinly corrugated palm, sickle, and the throat-scratching packet of rolled beedi leaves. He passes by trailing a haze of mild fermentation.

Birding takes me to such serendipitous settings where the zeal of citizen science takes a back seat and my senses absorb an essence of landscape I otherwise rarely imbibe. It creates wonderful opportunities to delve deep into myself, stilling a futile search for life’s meanings in an increasingly fractious world that we are urbanising at catastrophic speed, taking away from a generous land the solace of open spaces.

A review of my book by Carol Inskipp, in The Auk

2011-04-29T23:40:00.000+05:30

Birds in Books: Three Hundred Years of South Asian Ornithology—A Bibliography.—Aasheesh Pittie. 2010. Permanent Black, Ranikhet, India. xxi + 845 pp. ISBN 81-7824-294-X. Rs 795. Distributed by Orient Blackswan Private Ltd. (www.orientblackswan. com).

Published in The Auk: 128 (2): 433–434.

This volume is an outstanding work of meticulous research documenting for the first time the ornithology of South Asia and nearby political areas: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. The region encompasses both Oriental and Palaearctic realms.

The published literature on ornithology in the region is vast, spanning almost three centuries and recording over 1,200 species of birds. Aasheesh Pittie points out that as early as 1713–1750, about 15 books relating to South Asian ornithology had been published; this number had soared to over 1,700 by the end of 2009!

In this bibliography, a comprehensive list of books that contain information on the birds of South Asia is provided. Scholarly, popular, as well as relatively obscure texts, are included to present a complete as possible picture of ornithological publications on South Asia. Taxonomic texts dealing with the classification and nomenclature of birds, travelogues, picture books, field guides, works published as monographs within journals, bibliographies, biographies, autobiographies, country handbooks, regional avi-faunas, multi-volume ornithological works, art folios, catalogues of museum collections, and simple checklists are all included.

The books are mainly in English, except for certain period literature that is in German, French, Latin, etc. A few works in Indian languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Malaylam, etc) are also included, though the author states that these may not comprise a complete representation of existing work in regional languages.

The general arrangement of the works is alphabetical by author and chronological by year, under author.

Three indices are provided, facilitating easy access to the entries. The first is a general index of places, subjects, and taxa; the second, an index of new names proposed by authors; and the third an index of co-authors and or co-editors.

Twenty-one pages of introduction detail a fascinating chronology of books published on South Asian ornithology and is complemented by an interesting timeline of books from 1713 to 2009 listing the dates of key works.

This bibliography provides a window on a massive bank of scientific and popular knowledge that is invaluable to contemporary ornithologists, both amateur and professional. It is a landmark publication of South Asian ornithology and belongs in all university and museum libraries and in those of anyone with a keen interest in birds in the region.

Carol Inskipp, 1 Herneside, Welney, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire PE14 9SB, United Kingdom; e-mail: inskipp@btinternet.com.

Birding K. B. R. National Park, Hyderabad: 17 April 2011

2011-04-26T21:57:00.001+05:30

Sometimes it is invigorating birding with beginners. Their enthusiasm rubs off on ‘old hands’ like me, whose airy mantle is scrubbed off with the vim of fresh blood.

This trip to KBR has a flock of juvenile birdwatchers flexing the pinions of their new hobby. Some are photographers with forbiddingly long lenses, no doubt a handy tool even for seasoned birders. A photograph gives me the privilege of armchair identification. Others bring less extravagant equipment, their palpable enthusiasm.

Early morning perambulators goggle our motley lot in disbelief, as though we are knights of Arthur’s table. But we are used to this attention, and invariably win the day by mist-netting one or more gawkers who succumb to our intriguing behaviour and unrestrained joy at sighting a bird; so that they join us.

The first stop is near a flowering tree. It is a-whirr with wings. A family of Indian golden orioles; purple sunbirds in various stages of dressing-up, resplendent shimmering males, demure hens in mute olives, and an eclipse-dishabille male in just a necktie; a ménage-a-trois of Indian robins; a self-consciously pink-billed Tickell’s flowerpecker, peering at the world through polished beady lignite eyes; a dapper cock Tickell’s flycatcher glistening in the recessed shadows, lisping a droll whistled cadence. Too the commoners—chattering redvented-, and white-browed bulbuls, crooning spotted doves, the distant clarion of a grey partridge cleaving all noise with its shrill urgency. Shot arrow sprays of rose-ringed parakeets tearing the blue sky above, giddy house-swifts chasing each other’s dazzling white rumps.

Where does one begin with a cheeping novice? With the first bird. Sometimes it is even more basic—how to use, no, with both eyes open (!), the shiny new binocs. There, look to the right of the tree trunk, half way up, or better, imagine the face of a giant clock in front of you, and look at 3 o’clock.

To point out the pastel orange, off-white, and blue bundle that sings upon the bough, and give it a name to hold on to, identify with, and watch the visible pleasure, the disbelief-impregnated gasp, is my reward. My hope is that a life-long appetite for birding has been ignited.

Thankfully no one argues when I point out a black-coloured male Indian robin, as one had many years ago, “A robin has to be blue,” a-la, Robin Blue garment whitener advertised in various media. His shock at learning the truth was colossal, and for the rest of the trip he looked positively let down by the demigod the media has become.

One asks how I remember birdcalls. The only way I know is to follow a sound, to cut a direct path towards it, then to stop and stare at the songster, to allow its song to drench you, soak into your very skin, become a part of your existence, your charmed private landscape.

An invisible iora whistles variations on the theme of “shaubheegi.” It blanks out my world, deafening in its lilting simplicity, it pulses into every green fibre around me, ricochets in canopies, distils the breeze, sings a glorious morning.

In the leafy world around me an intense drama is enacted, covering the ambit of essential human emotions—sex, food, and territory. I am an unseeing spectator, an aural witness.

A barbwire tangle of dry thorny branches snares an iridescent star. A cock purple sunbird, glistening in burnished purple has lit upon a twig, pouring in the breeze a cascade of exuberantly tripping notes. Its hidden golden-yellow epaulettes erupt into brilliantly contrasting searchlights, as it sings its heart out. In the circular field of my binocs a blue canvas holds jumbled thorny bush, and the mesmerising radiance of the tiny songster. As it swivels fervently, now bowing, now stretching on tip-toe with head thrown back, intent upon proclaiming territory, or enticing a coy hen, light dances its plumage into a coruscating iridescence.

A few “good” birds, those that are seen well, enjoyed thoroughly, listened to carefully, and thrilled in, give me greater joy than the endless pursuit of variety, fleetingly glimpsed, abandoned, unabsorbed, and unimbibed. The insatiate twitcher is ever hungry. Here is another thought for a beginner. Allow birds to come to you and savour their individuality, bird by bird.

If I were to choose a seductress from the common birds, to tempt someone into the birdwatcher’s fold, it would be a tantalising golden oriole. A resplendent male dazzles us as it feeds on the green berries of a tree. Light bounces off him with almost artificial effulgence. Unaware of his magnetic attractiveness, he paces the branches in showy preoccupation. His glistening black primaries and masquerade ball mask contrast spectacularly with his golden-yellow plumage. His strangely flesh-pink bill is an untarnished, pure appendage that is inserted delicately into nectar-sweetened flowers.

A few of us just cannot move on. We stand hypnotised by this aurum creature. Words are few and far. What can one say in the presence of such beauty? All are awed into a hushed silence of admiration. Thoughts are voiceless, internalised. All the senses combine into a single invocation, which at such times, overwhelms, despite stoicism, or temporal belief, and leaves us stranded amidst the glacial progress of civilisations, the upsurge of cultures, alone, in the presence of untarnished natural sublimity. Each one of us imbibes an oriole moment in those fractional seconds, in absolute solitude.

The path meanders towards a shrunken wetland that draws annual rafts of waterfowl, in winter, when it is augmented with monsoonal runoff. The authorities have been moving earth in their wisdom, deepening the trough to catch and hold more water. Excavated mud is piled up as a causeway on one side. Now the water is a shallow pool, its margins, atrophied in the increasingly hot days, fringed with cooling reeds. Rounded boulders lie scattered on the shores, some under an umbrella of stunted scrub. A couple of them form convenient islands in the water, on which some birds rest.

The group is tired, and hungry, sinking to the ground, under the leafy trees. Breakfast is passed around, throats quenched. Gradually conversation re-surfaces, and laid-back birding takes hold of satiated birders.

Dabchicks float placidly upon the still water. One or two are in breeding plumage. There are a few juveniles, precociously swimming behind adults. One, albinistic, sits on a rock in the water, foxing our rationality. Only when it slips into the liquid do we realise our folly … and it is not an albino! On the opposite shore a grotesquely long-toed jacana flashes its cuprum wings, as it scampers, as best it can on toes that have evolved to tread floating leaves. In the process it uses its wings like the balancing pole of a tightrope walker. Still, it is difficult to see, and the newly minted birders learn another trick of the trade. Do not move yourself, but spot movement. The next time the lily-walker flutters for balance, it is spotted. Its white eye-stripe is an instant hit. Two eternally questioning red-wattled lapwings stride about confidently on yellow legs, on the dry foreshores, yelling their lungs out. Much ado about nothing, or is it? Nature abhors wasted metabolism. A purple heron sails in on cupped wings, legs dangling for a foothold, planeing towards a small clump of reeds on the near shore, touching down gingerly, before folding wings over its back with visible relief. It is in brilliantly fresh plumage—ever a delight to behold. A few minutes later, its cousin, the grey heron appears in a slicked descent to the trembling margin. The ‘essed’ neck, ending at the rapier beak, is tensed up and back, like a reined-in stallion, stilt legs lowered to gently touch down into the pond-smelling ooze of its preferred terra infirma. This individual feels the heat and wades into the water no sooner it lands, letting the stagnant marsh rise to soak its belly. It looks comical, walking thus, as though swimming! But herons hunt in different ways, and this is one, wherein prey is consciously disturbed by the wading bird, and snapped up.

Our way back is partly strewn with dead leaves. The cataclysmic orgy of spring, the colossal putting-forth of leaves, the landscape transforming green foliage, lies in absolute ruin all around, devastated by the stealthy turn of seasons. Stark and bare trees surround us. Not to worry, I philosophise, this annual cycle is the engine of rebirth that is as old as the earth itself. It sustains life.

Anantgiri, Vikarabad, Andhra Pradesh: 20 March 2011

2011-04-13T17:42:00.000+05:30

A faint “scree” chalk-on-slate sound comes from my right, as I descend into the valley. Repeated, it piques my curiosity, bouncing an echo from a befogged memory. It is uncanny how our recumbent sensory memorabilia hibernate, coiled and forgotten in the recesses of the mind, springing forth, afresh, at the slightest provocation.

That whispered gossamer note draws me towards it. I climb a few rough-hewn steps in the rocky side of the valley, deliberately, carefully, lest its source fly away. A faint movement, a give-away white spot on a dark rock background arrests my searching eye. Stealthily raising bins I focus on a glowing male Blue-headed Rock Thrush. Standing erect, with neck out-stretched, and beak partially open it is the picture of concentration as it creaks out that rusty-hinged strain. About the size of a black-headed myna, its plumage is broken up by an amazing mixture of cobalt blue, black, chestnut, and snow white, its eye covered by a bandit’s black mask. Its mien, however, belies the swagger of its flamboyant feathers; it is hesitant and uneasy on the darkly pitted lava, the confidence of its cut-up clothing crumbles as I approach. In a jiffy it is off, swirling its torn cape into flight, flashing glistening white spots that mirror its irritation.

It remains in the area, despite me perching on a convenient rock, taking notes, observing other goings on under these ancient banyan trees, rooted in aeon-defying stone that is carpeted with their yellowed rustling dry leaves. I spy it often in its furtive, tip-toed flight, bluffing my existence while hunting around the margins of my vision, disappearing exasperatingly behind an obstructing branch, as though the act of shifting my head by a hair’s width, for a better view, tugs it miraculously behind a screen! Who says the art of birding is a breeze? One way of succeeding at it plays upon patience: enough to earn the trust of and, sufficient to fool one’s target into considering you a part of the landscape. One has to sharpen this tool on the whetstone of practise, to savour its fruit.

Two relatives of this elegantly feathered elfin also share these spaces. They are heftier, the size of jungle babblers, of which anon, but more suave—every feather in place, always at their best behaviour. Their grey-blue mantle is setoff by a sumptuous wash of ochre, their cheeks tearstained white and brown, marking them for life with a palpable sadness.

It seems a busy time for them—the hour when they worm an ocean of dry leaves, and they are in no mood to let me distract them from their toil. Unlike their timorous mountain-dwelling small thrush-billed[1] cousin, they are bold blue-eared animal hunters[2], and so they stay. I am spellbound by their magical existence, and gutted by the visceral realisation that I am not even a part of their world.

They flick aside leaves with stout beaks, peer into crevices and shadows with moist black eyes. They parse every extraordinary movement tirelessly, ever vigilant, for invariably such motion means flight, or food. Today they are determined wormers, working the leaf-litter methodically, purposefully hopping on to the rough stone platform, never far from each other. I wonder about this, till I see, just once, one of the pair shiver its wings in the giveaway gesture of a hungry juvenile. There is no loud fussing, like some birds I know, but neither is there any lagging by the other thrush. Instantly it is beside the now revealed youngster, with a satiating morsel. When I eyeball this domestic scene through the bins, my ears filter a ratchety scratching buzz from the background noise, which is uttered in a ghost whisper by the young worm hunter.

The thing that strikes me, whilst I watch these two, is the method of their terrestrial locomotion. The jungle babblers show me how the thrushes differ in the way they hop. The babblers bounce along the ground, tackling undulations, obstructions, etc., without hesitation or extra effort. Their legs are placed higher up their bellies than those of the ground thrushes, and I think therein lies the difference. The thrushes are lumberous hoppers. They lean forward, shifting their centre of gravity, thereby creating an impetus, simultaneously pushing off with their feet—launching into this laboured serial of bounds, from one point to another. Their execution of this movement is so well-oiled and spirited that when seen casually, it is a joyous sight.

The thrush-mimicking[3] babblers seem to absorb their exuberant energy directly from the earth. A ruffian flock of four rummages the leaf-layered earth pelt under the figgery, ping ponging across its floor with the belligerence of self-appointed bouncers. They exude boundless energy as they graze the detritus strewn land. No tindery leaf is left unturned; no crevice of bark or stonework escapes their inquisitive eye; no suspicious morsel is left un-jabbed. Their constant guttural banter, variable to the extreme in pitch and intensity, forms an impenetrable cloud of sound above their gastronomic safari—but their demeanour remains blasé. Propelled on springy legs they bounce with surprising swiftness, towards some unfortunate arthropod whose utmost frantic attempt at escape, burying itself into the decomposing litter, is preordained to fail. The sweet-voiced thrush is no less a ruthless killer, nor the belligerent babbler, than a stooping peregrine—flung like an anchor across the firmament to hook itself into one isolated member of a frantic flock of rock doves. Human sympathy is biased towards spilt gore and guilty in dismissing crushed chitin without remorse for the simple reason that we cannot relate to it emotionally.

Babblers banish boredom. Between bouts of babbling and squabbling, they bounce, belabour, bludgeon, bulldoze, berate, bicker, and blaspheme. They are members of the avian paparazzi, the brat pack that goes berserk at the sight of a forest-dwelling celebrity, be it a Shikra espied, an owlet discovered, or a vine snake cornered. The flood of invective that they pour at the poor creature, fluttering, fluffing, switching this way and that while feverishly gripping the branch with their feet, in such paroxysms of petulance that they succeed in summoning more of their bothersome ilk to bolster their annoyed lamentations to such a pitch that the hapless victim is forced to flee, often trailing a stream of its tormentors, desperately trying to outdo each other in bravado.

Babblers are also the contact calls of a forest. They fill the pockets of stillness and quiet that envelope me suddenly in a glade, with an apologetic grunt, uttered intermittently, keeping fresh the breath of life that peoples the kingdom of trees. This is the way a sisterhood keeps in touch as its members glean the foliage, hesitate on the ground before fluttering up into the lowest branch of a tree, to work their way upwards, branch by branch, leaf by leaf, till they have scrutinised the entire canopy, reaching the top, and then launching off on feebly fluttering wings, guided by a choral thread of obscenities belabouring the enormous effort required to eke a living, dropping one after another in an untidy heap at the foot of another unforaged tree. Their extreme indecision at this moment, fuelled by mercurial, enormously opinionated egos, erupts into a free-for-all of such vituperation that one would think it is a fight to the finish. They pile upon each other right there, on the forest floor, visible to all and sundry, with nothing but murderous intent in their heart. And yet, the very next instant they begin preening one another, the best of babbler buddies!

Another avian marvel perambulates the debris of shed leaves, first noticed when I am taken aback by the apparent self-propulsion of a fallen leaf, but dismissed for the wind. But it keeps happening, and when I finally focus on a moving leaf it is transformed into a delectable Olive-backed Pipit! Three stroll among the disintegrating leaves, hidden so completely that if I look away, I lose them. They are feeding with an obvious single-minded zeal—tucking in for the long and arduous continent-spanning journey back to their breeding grounds in the Himalayas. If the globetrotters in front of me are Anthus hodgsoni yunnanensis, they will travel much further north, to the taiga belt. Alarmed by a shikra’s mock sortie, one bird flies up into a lower branch of the ficus, perching bolt upright for a few moments, its bold tiger-striped chest in spectacular display, pumping its tail up and down, bolstering its quaking heart. It saunters blithely along the branch, till fear abates, and descends to feed again. Tree pipits are the silent waifs of our forests, for even when feeding in each other’s proximity, they seem aloof, impersonal, introverted. These individuals in front of me, in obliterative fatigues, look rotund with accumulated fat, essential fuel for their mind-boggling peregrinations.

Looking straight up at the fecund ficus, into its filigreed lacework of a million leaves and tiny orange figs, glowing in their ripeness like thin-skinned Jack-o’-lanters, I enter an uncanny planet, humming with vibrancy, peopled by a myriad world of feathered bipeds, all so utterly and completely unaware of my own living constellation intent upon general annihilation, that I am sucked up into their hubbub, suddenly becoming aware of the microcosmic immensity of all this as though in a vision. In an unbelievable momentary epiphany I merge with the avian metropolis above. And then the spell breaks. A gargantuan archaeopteryx slides into my prism-enhanced field of vision. Perceptibly darkening the trillion sun specks bouncing in the foliage, it slips through the upper canopy rending the verdure fabric of an idyllic morning with a blood-curdling shriek that momentarily freezes all feathered frolic. The grey hornbill resembles a giant aircraft so much, and the birds below it, a gawking crowd at a busy airport, that I involuntary sink onto a rock—the world encapsulated by that fig is no less a melting pot of avian diversity than are airports of humans.

The dazzlingly bright morning starts to warm, as the rising sun filters into the valley. We wander on, enchanted by sight and sound, mystified, exclamatory, surprised, and fascinated by turns. The valley widens ever so slightly, with space for trees and shrubbery, and tiny ephemeral rills that puddle water from some recent, off-seasonal rain.

In a sun-dappled forest patch, atop a chest-high bush perches a brown-breasted flycatcher. Bathed in golden light, surrounded by airy verdure, its large pensive eyes follow every movement in the buzzing understorey, sharply watchful for flying midges. It too is piling on fat for a shorter journey than the tree pipits, and in the opposite direction too. Its summers are spent on the emerald island of Sri Lanka. Its obliterative grey-brown plumage, and its muted, undemonstrative ways convey a false sense of secrecy. Flycatchers of its ilk demand our focus and therein lies their charisma. They tantalise not due to any innate reclusiveness but because we are blind to the obvious. Bird … watchers … need also to see!

Muscicapa muttui’s[4] aerial realm exists in the understorey of open forest, where it sorties after flying insects without any extravagant display, taciturnity being its dependable oeuvre. Once, when I press suspiciously near it with the, well, characteristic intrusion of a birder, it vanishes in a smoke screen of blurred pinions. Then I re-spot it across the road on the tip of a declining thin tamarind branch, and raise my bins, and for the second time that morning, incredibly, the eye streams sound into my ear. Sotto voce, Muscicapa muttui is muttering malignments in my direction. We see two more of them further ahead, invisible in the open.

There are erythrinas on the path, medium to tall trees, open canopied at this time, leafless, sky revealing, but rubied with a nectary of small tiger-clawed blossoms. This little valley surely pampers its wild denizens. Here is a street displaying hundreds of nectar heavy flowers luring the birdy-eyed.

It is almost midday by now and when we turn back, the frenzy of dawn tipplers has thinned to a couple of diehard chestnut-shouldered petronias and a few mousy-voiced white-eyes, pushing each other self-consciously, towards the lambent red temptation. In the settling heat, their buzzing replaces cicada music. The petronias don’t give a fig about the world. From flower to flower they move, thrusting bills deep into each cup, savouring shiny nectar, emerging glistening beaked, dazzled momentarily by the sun, only to spot another heady tumbler, conjure another ethereal dive into its depth. One of them, in sheer drollery, eschews the mandatory hop to another blossom’s base, and simply leans across space to partake off a fulsome flower, flashing its nectar-dipped beak. It is a rich sight to end a glorious morning’s worth of birding.

[1] =Monticola cinclorhynchus

[2] =Zoothera citrina cyanotus

[3] =Turdoides

[4] Named after the Sri Lankan discoverer’s servant, Muthu!

Books in my life: Stoop like a Peregrine

2011-04-10T11:51:00.000+05:30

The Peregrine, The Hill of Summer & Diaries. The Complete Works of J. A. Baker. 2010. Introduction by Mark Cocker; Edited by John Fanshawe. London: Collins. Pp. 416. £20.

John Alec Baker’s (1926–1987) The Peregrine (1967) scorched an incendiary trajectory to literary fame by winning that year’s Duff Cooper Prize, awarded for, “the best in non-fiction writing,”[1] and remains the only work in the genre of ‘nature writing’ so honoured, since the award was instituted in 1956. Over the past four decades Baker has attained the coveted stature of being a writer’s writer on a remarkably slim body of work comprising two books, the above, and The Hill of Summer (1969). He is considered the most influential British nature-writer of the twentieth century—joining ranks with Gilbert White, John Clare, and W. H. Hudson, all revered masters of the genre—elevated to that pedestal by admiring contemporary poets and nature-writers, awed by the adroit use of words, and consummate turns of phrase that he forged in his word-smithy.

Baker lived all his life in the small English town of Chelmsford, Essex, and for a greater part of his working life was manager, first of the local branch of the Automobile Association, and later, of a fruit juice depot. Strangely, he never learnt how to drive, preferring to ride a bicycle around the countryside while watching birds! He was a true champion of the local patch, meandering quiet country roads either after work hours, or from dawn to dusk on holidays, absorbing the wild topography of his beloved Essex, so he could, “Convey the wonder of … a land to me profuse and glorious as Africa.” He preferred birdwatching by himself, occasionally hinting the presence of a companion with a privacy-guarding initial, or using the non-committal ‘we,’ in his diary. Towards the end of his life he suffered from, and finally succumbed to, the protracted agony of rheumatoid arthritis.

I have read The Peregrine four times since the 1980s, stooping into its pages between readings, and have, every time, come away gasping at the brilliance of Baker’s incandescent prose—clearly my favourite for a marooned-on-an-island book. It is written in the form of a diary, purportedly covering a year, but conjecturally encapsulating the author’s decade-long (mainly 1955–1966) single-minded, Ahabic[2] pursuit of this iconic predator, during a time when it was considered rare in Great Britain.

Baker’s ability to imbibe landscape and atmosphere in its entirety cannot but be celebrated: to convey a sense of place and its denizens with incomparable intuition; to metamorphose into the wolf in its hackled pelt, or fleece-trapped sheep; to torpedo his reader into the visceral stoop of the savage wanderer, plunging earthward as though that circumambulating sphere were ether and the bird intent on emerging unscathed beyond; to terrorise him into the frantic flight of a doomed pintail; to make the world tilt and flash in the seething cauldron of this quicksilver moment, this temporal drama.

In an insightful passage of great import to the birdwatcher, Baker once found himself,

… crouching over the kill, like a mantling hawk. My eyes turned quickly about, alert for the walking heads of men. Unconsciously I was imitating the movements of a hawk, as in some primitive ritual; the hunter becoming the thing he hunts. I looked into the wood. In a lair of shadow the peregrine was crouching, watching me, gripping the neck of a dead branch. We live, in these days in the open, the same ecstatic fearful life. We shun men. We hate their suddenly uplifted arms, the insanity of their flailing gestures, their erratic scissoring gait, their aimless stumbling ways, the tombstone whiteness of their faces.[3]

The hill of summer is a lyrically pastoral record of a year in the life of a hill, the changing cycle of its seasons, the covering and disrobing of its vegetative mantle, the peregrinations of its denizens. It is profoundly enjoyable if you let the author’s immaculate eye unravel the scenery for you. Baker’s hawk-obsessed passages are fiery, fierce, and exquisitely tooled:

The male sparrowhawk lives very close to the edge of things. He is a primitive, an aboriginal among birds, savage in killing because his power is small. His long legs look thin and fragile, like stems of amber. He snatches his prey, bears it down, grips it insanely as though he fears its life will swell up in his foot, will swell up and burst and overwhelm him … Every movement of the wood reaches out and touches him with a long finger … But unmated, or when nesting is over, he reverts to what he was: a wild-leaping gazelle of the air, whose thin yellow eyes pierce all shadow, whom all steps tread upon, whom all sounds deafen, whom all sights dazzle; the flying nerve of the wood.[4]

And yet, despite his raptor fixation, he is euphonic when describing other facets of the countryside,

The wood lark’s song is less abandoned and more melancholy-sounding than the skylark’s. Each new cadence is elaborated from the one that went before. The bird seems to ponder each phrase before shaping it into song. He sings it, lets it fall, recovers it, lets it fall, then lets it lie where it fell … It was a wonder to me that so small a fragment of life could fly in complete darkness, and in heavy rain, breathing so carefully, skilfully, out into nothing, for nothing, to nothing, but to be itself.[5]

While the two books are distillations of his diaries, a third of which are published in this volume of his ‘complete’ works, it is these recently discovered sheaf of papers, printed now for the first time, that shine a ray of sunlight on the true spirit of the man. Through them we learn of his birding companions, of the tools of his trade that created his style of birding, of his frailties, of the incredible sensitivity, and reluctant mortality of his thoughts. The above song of the Wood Lark was taken and rearranged from a slightly differently worded, yet profoundly poignant, diary entry of 16 June 1954:

We stood under that wonderful sound, coming down to us in the thick darkness and the pouring rain. And a feeling of great exhilaration possessed me, like a sudden lungful of purer air. The great pointlessness of it, the non-sense of nature, was beautiful, and no-one else would know it again, exactly as we knew it at that moment. Only a bird would circle high in the darkness, endlessly singing for pure, untainted, instinctive joy, and only a bird-watcher would stand and gorp up at something he could never hope to see … sharing that joy.

Baker’s greatest achievement is the ability to draw the reader into the atmosphere of the peregrine’s, or indeed, his own, landscape on any page that falls open, despite the author’s perceptive confession, “The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.”

No birdwatcher’s library is complete without The peregrine perched on the shelf, nor his eye honed to that skill, if it were not well thumbed.

[Published in Indian BIRDS 7 (1): 22–23. 2011.]

[1] Source: http://www.duffcooperprize.org [Accessed on 25 March 2011].

[2] The striking parallel of Baker’s obsession to the immortal grandeur of Captain Ahab’s mania for the white whale was taken from ‘LRB Blog’ [http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/08/03/gillian-darley/who-was-j-a-baker/]. [Accessed on 25 March 2011.]

[3] The Peregrine, chapter entitled ‘November.’

[4] ‘May downland’ (p. 194).

[5] ‘May downland’ (p. 195).

A review of my book by Tony Gaston

2010-12-07T17:49:00.000+05:30

PITTIE, A. Birds in Books: Three Hundred Years of South Asian Ornithology: a Bibliography. xxi + 845 pages. Ranikhet, India: Permanent Black, 2010. Hardback, Rs795.00, ISBN 81-7824-294-X. Email (publisher): perblack@gmail.com; (author): aasheesh. pittie@gmail.com.

Published in Ibis 153 (1): 217.

Reviewing a book of 845 pages is a daunting task and even more so when the contents are not a connected text, but a series of entries, varying from two lines to two pages, attempting to encompass every book that makes mention of a bird that occurs in South Asia. My review has, of necessity, been selective: I did not read every page.

Over 1700 books are listed in this bibliography, start- ing with Ray’s Synopsis of 1715 (it contains a list of 22 species of birds from a correspondent in Chennai) and going through to 2008. It includes very general works, such as the Dictionary of Birds (Campbell & Lack 1985) and Alexander’s (1928) Birds of the Ocean, and taxonomic group accounts (e.g. Furness’s The Skuas of 1987), as well as very speciﬁc, local works such as Lamba’s (1987) Fauna of Corbett National Park or Small and Beautiful: Sultanpur National Park by Lal et al. (1996). Many works included would be very difficult to locate, even in India, being either old and rare or locally produced, probably in small print runs.

For each book, full publication details are given, including pages, number of illustrations and illustrators and a list of contents, where pertinent, as well as where and by whom the book was reviewed – an especially useful feature, although I suspect not exhaustive. Particularly for older works, there is some detail given on the topics covered. The Introduction explains the philosophy behind the amount of detail devoted to each book, but there clearly has been some arbitrary selection. Authorial comments are very sparse and brief: ‘delightful essays on birdlife around water’, ‘a useful guide on ornithological methods…’, etc. Any new names pro- posed for South Asian birds are listed.

A 62-page section at the end of the book gives brief biographies of most of the authors (those deceased). There are three indexes, one for people, places, species and families, one for new names and one for ‘acronyms, co-authors and co-editors’, although I did not see any acronyms listed. The large numbers of abbreviations used are explained at the end of the Introduction – I really needed this feature.

This book is a work of enormous dedication by a true bibliophile, and the wealth of detail is astonishing. Even with all the resources of the World Wide Web, it would, I think, be impossible to assemble solely from online sources such a comprehensive list of books relating to the birds of South Asia. Consequently, this bibliography can truly be said to be unique. Personally, I share the author’s enthusiasm for everything bookish and applaud his enormous industry. However, I have to question how many of us there are about in 2010. Despite my own interest in books and in the birds of South Asia, I cannot imagine actually making a great deal of use of this collection. Ornithology, except for identiﬁcation, is now recorded in journals and magazines, rather than in books. Libraries have become places where people browse the web, rather than the shelves. Sadly, a bibliography like this seems like kippers at English teatime – a wonderful institution, but one that may have served another era.

Tony Gaston

Books in my life: ‘Country roads take me home …’

2010-10-02T20:38:00.000+05:30

Hill country harvest by Hal Borland

J. B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia & New York. 1967. 377 pp.

[Genre: Country life; Nature; Autobiography]

This book sat on my shelf for five years before I eased it out a few days ago, resolved to read it this time round. Not that I’d started it earlier, and left it mid-way. But I must have taken it down and browsed through it at least a dozen times, replacing it in line with other un-read ones, simply because I wasn’t ready to begin.

A few pages later I realised that I had stumbled onto something so luminous in its flow of language, so serendipitous in its subject, that I was literally spellbound. The book itself, is a third print run of the first edition, which speaks for its popularity when it came into the market—to be printed thrice in the same year! And I don’t know whether it went into more print runs that year. It’s heft, and type, are just right, and my clean second-hand copy has the comfort and familiarity akin to a favourite reading chair.

Borland wrote a weekly outdoor editorial-essay for the New York Times Sunday editorial page, a selection of which takes the reader, in Hill country harvest, through a year of New England’s countryside. Each commentary runs a short two-and-a-half page, roughly segregated into the cycle of seasons, melding imperceptibly into each other with the telling subtlety of the seasons themselves, reflecting the transformation in the author’s physical and mental landscape.

The unhurried, yet inexorable progress of time, and its journey through the eyes of a countryman is reflected off the city-dweller’s frenetic clock. Borland shows us that the difference between watching life go by, and tarrying to see, is a gentle chasm that makes all the difference in our quest to ‘take life directly, and not [through] someone else’s interpretation.’ And there are no better places to do this than the countryside, for cityscapes are run over by so many interpretations that they’ve become an unreal, frightful dimension of the real earth.

A review of my book by Mark Cocker

2010-08-15T12:51:00.001+05:30

Birds in Books: three hundred years of south Asian ornithology—a bibliography.
By Aasheesh Pittie.
Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2010.
Hbk, 845 pp, ISBN 81-7824-294-X. £45.00
Link to British Birds review

Bibliographies are strange things. Any one who writes a book or even a paper usually has to compile one. Any one who uses books simply to further their own research has to search them. Yet they are often tedious to assemble and, as any author will tell you, at worse they can be a nightmare to render accurate. So many previous authors have wrongly transcribed a book’s details in their own bibliographies that errors can get handed down from one book to another for generations. Yet this much everyone should acknowledge. They are critically important to all forms of scholarship.

How wonderful then to come across someone who takes a special pride in building up a bibliography that is fastidiously accurate, massively detailed and far-ranging in coverage. Aasheesh Pittie has trawled the entire published literature referring to Indian ornithology over the last 300 years and then reduced the details of these 1700 books to one beautifully presented volume. For anyone interested in the subject, it cuts out hours, probably days, spent trawling libraries for all the relevant material. It also provides a model for any author on how to render a title in their own bibliography.

Pittie is as much a historian as he is a bibliophile and archivist. The book includes an introduction that maps out the relationship between the published literature and the wider development of Indian ornithology. This synoptic portrait of Indian bird knowledge is supplemented by a 62-page appendix that contains pithy, engaging biographies of some of the leading European and Asian figures in the field. So while it is primarily a hand tool for students, it is also a book that is a pleasure to browse.

Yet it is the detailed outlines of the 1,700 works that forms the vast bulk of this heavy tome. The range of published material covered is more than just technical ornithological titles and embraces works of more general travel or art that contain bird-related material. Pittie has also gone further than most bibliographers and, as well as the usual suite of title, author, place, publisher, date of publication, he offers a rounded outline of the book’s contents and an inventory of illustrations or photographs and comments on the overall quality or historical significance of the book. To complete its practical utility there are three indices, with page listings respectively to the birds, places and people. Overall the author has done a really thorough job and his splendid book is an invaluable tool for anyone interested in the birds of south Asia.

2010. British Birds 103 (8): 470.

My response to R. J. R. Daniels's review

2010-08-12T10:08:00.006+05:30

Dear Dr Ranjit Daniels,

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that you have reviewed my book, Birds in books, for Current Science [99 (3): 385–386]. I thank you for your insights, which I hope will make for improved future editions. I also thank you for recommending it to readers.

However, you raise a few points, that I need to clarify.

The first is regarding the "gaps in listing regional language ornithological publications included in the book" (p. 385). May I draw your attention to page 17 of the book, where I elaborate on its 'Scope'. In the last para I have clearly stated, 'The books included here are mainly in English … A few works in Indian languages … are also included but these may not comprise a complete representation of existing work in regional languages."

As regards the book by Air Vice Marshall Vishwa Mohan Tivari, I think you missed this one. It is listed on p. 715, # 1582.

The second is regarding the listing of "obscure" literature, and those listed as 'Not seen' by me. For a bibliographer, citing obscure literature is as important as literature central to the subject. And it is completely unfair to the authors to state that all books that I've listed under 'Not seen', may well be obscure. I would not dare to categorise the works of John Gould (# 658), John Latham (# 1014), Thomas Pennant (# 1250), F. H. Waterhouse (# 1643), etc., as 'obscure', even though I haven't seen them.

The third is what you consider a "major weakness of the timeline of books and the introduction [which] have failed to highlight the valuable contributions of Indian ornithologists …" Frankly I viewed the entire collation from the point of view of the subject, which is the ornithology of South Asia, and not nationalities of the authors.

Regarding the section entitled 'Brief biographies of authors', let me just say that I did not think this was the right place for greater biographical elaboration about the deceased ornithologists.

Your penultimate criticism, wherein you state, "the index is totally useless as it serves no purpose … there is no author index," is the hardest to understand. The entire bibliography is arranged alphabetically according to first author's surname! Please see p. 18 where I clearly inform the reader that, 'The general arrangement of the works is alphabetical by author, and chronologically by year, under author.' This is the precise reason that an index to co-authors and co-editors has been provided.

Finally, you state that "the index of 'new names' are basically old synonyms and not recent changes …" Unfortunately, here you completely miss the point. The 'new names' are names given to taxa when they were first described by the authors in these works. I had no intention of listing current taxonomic jugglery.

There are other valid points you raise, and I thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Being an amateur student of ornithology, this is a great help to me.

A review of my book by R. J. Ranjit Daniels

2010-08-12T10:04:00.001+05:30

Birds in Books: Three Hundred Years of South Asian Ornithology – A Bibliography. Aasheesh Pittie. Permanent Black, ‘Himalayan’, Mall Road, Ranikhet Contt, Ranikhet 263 645. 2010. xxi + 845 pp. Price: Rs 795.

Birds belong to the second most diverse class of vertebrate animals. The nine thousand species of extant birds are spread across continents in a way that there is practically no place on earth without birds. The great range of sizes, shapes, colours, calls and habits of birds have undoubtedly made them the most fascinating of animals.

Human fascination for birds is age old. Traditionally, people adorned themselves with feathers, performed ritualistic bird dances, caged some as pets, domesticated others like the chicken, duck, turkey and pigeon and also carried them far and wide. The long time human–bird association has not only influenced culture but also science and technology. Interestingly, despite the great strides that ornithology has made as a specialized branch of animal sciences, it continues to accommodate amateur wisdom. Major contributions to the study of birds have come from bird watchers not trained in animal sciences. The book under review is an excellent example of how amateur ornithology can complement serious and dedicated scientific research.

Birds in Books by Aasheesh Pittie is indeed an ‘eye-opener’ to the wealth of publications in the field of South Asian ornithology. The author has meticulously compiled titles of 1715 books on birds of South Asia published during the past 300 years. For every book that he has collected or seen, he has written brief abstracts of the contents and the quality of presentation. The timeline of books dealt with span a period between 1713 and 2009 (pp. xviii–xxi).

Eighteenth century authors listed are John Ray, George Edwards, Carl von Linné (Linnaeus), Thomas Pennant, Johann Reinhold Forster, P. Sonnerat, J. F. Gmelin, John Latham and David Hugh, some of whom I know only by their Latinized names incorporated in the binomials of birds (for example, Gallus sonneratii, the Grey Jungle Fowl). Names of more familiar ornithologists begin to appear in the 19th century literature; John Gould, A. O. Hume, T. C. Jerdon and E. W. Oates, for instance. South Asian ornithology got its greatest boost in the 20th century with the arrival of stalwarts like Salim Ali that it is only appropriate that this ‘greatest-of-all’ Indian ornithologist’s contribution, by way of books alone, covers 44 pages of Pittie’s compilation (pp. 36–79). The cover is well-designed. The solitary Indian Pitta portrayed on the jacket quite symbolizes a curious student!

While Pittie’s compilation has certainly made finding reference books simpler for students of South Asian ornithology, it is not without omissions, some of which in my opinion are quite blatant. Given the freedom that a reviewer enjoys, I wish to first draw the readers’ attention to the gaps in the regional language ornithological publications included in the book and the evident bias in favour of the more publicized titles. The book lists K. K. Neelakantan’s Keralathile Pakshikal, a book relentlessly publicized as ‘the’ landmark regional language ornithological treatise. The book also includes the Kannada language Field Guide to the Birds of Dakshina Kannada by K. Prabhakar Achar and K. Geetha Nayak published by the Bhuvanendra Nature Club in 2000. The Kannada field guide to birds, although not as highly rated as Neelakantan’s Malayalam book, did attract considerable publicity as it was released by Madhav Gadgil in the presence of ornithologists like S. A. Hussain. I even remember having reviewed the book for Resonance.

The more recent series of regional language translations of the bird guides by Richard Grimmett and colleagues do find a place in the bibliography section of the book. Is there no other meritorious regional language book on Indian birds? Of the handful that I am aware of, V. M. Tiwari’s well-illustrated book titled Joy of Bird Watching deserves attention. This book that was first published in Hindi in 1998 has an English edition published in 2002 by the Book Trust of India. Born in 1935, V. M. Tiwari retired as an Air Vice Marshall of the Indian Air Force!

Yet another commendable ornithological publication that is omitted is Pakshi Prapancha. This book published in 2006 by Asima Prathishthana (Bangalore) authored by Harish R. Bhat and Pramod Subbarao is the finest regional language (Kannada) guide to birds that I have seen. Harish R. Bhat is a botanist and Pramod Subbarao, in all probability, a software professional.

Next, even amongst the English language publications the listing is rather weak as there is a ‘selective’ absence of some of the significant contributions; the monographs published by Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), for instance. There is also a gross under-representation of the ornithological contributions made by the Zoological Survey of India. Further, on more detailed scrutiny, it seems as though the author has overrated some of the obscure literature that hardly merit treatment as publications. For example, Pittie has listed one title Birds of Madurai under my name. There is no such publication. What is intended is probably Bird Life on the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Campus, Madurai. This is a manuscript that I had prepared in 1982 (while a student of agriculture) with the hope of publishing it as my first self-illustrated book on birds. However, as I did not have the means, it remained a handwritten draft along with the line drawings of all the species described in the text. It was in 1983 during my brief stint with Raghavendra Gadagkar at the Centre for Ecological Sciences that the manuscript got typed, photocopied and bound into five or ten copies. I have a copy with me and I remember having sent one to the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University library and another to Salim Ali. I have no clue as to where the others are and how such an obscure piece of work had caught Pittie’s attention. Many other titles listed by the author as ‘not seen’ may well belong to this category of books.

The third major weakness is that the timeline of books and the introduction have failed to highlight the valuable contributions of Indian ornithologists, other than Salim Ali. Similarly, the section ‘Brief biographies of authors’ (pp. 765– 827), is merely an alphabetic listing of ‘obituaries’. Even here, Ravi Sankaran, former Director of SACON, is not included, although authors who died later have found a place in the book. In fact, throughout the book, there is not one of this committed Indian ornithologist’s contribution mentioned. Ravi Sankaran’s monographs on the florican, edible-nest swiftlet, Nicobar Megapode, and others should have found a place in the bibliography, the main content of the book.

Finally, the index is totally useless as it serves no purpose the way it has been organized. There is no author index, whereas there is a ‘co-author’ and ‘co-editor’ index. If I had gone by the index, I would not have found my books listed in the bibliography. The index of ‘new names’ is actually misleading as the names are basically old synonyms and not recent changes and there is no index of all the scientific names found in the book. Elsewhere, gleaning the index that says ‘acronyms’, one cannot find any.

Despite the shortcomings, the book by Aasheesh Pittie is worth possessing and I will certainly recommend it to individuals and institutions focused on ornithological research. It is a reasonably priced book. The rather critical comments are meant to help the author and the publisher to see and rectify the flaws as they update and enlarge the text for future editions.

Current Science, 99 (3): 385–386. 10 August 2010.

R. J. RANJIT DANIELS Care Earth Trust, No. 5, 21st Street, Thillaiganganagar Chennai 600 061, India e-mail: ranjit.daniels@gmail.com

A review of my book by Tim Inskipp

2010-08-08T22:57:00.001+05:30

Birds in books: three hundred years of South Asian ornithology—a bibliography.

By Aasheesh Pittie. 2010.

Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

Price: Rs 795 / £ 45.50.

Link: Indian BIRDS 6 (3): 86.

An amazing work covering an often neglected aspect of ornithology—the bibliography of the multitude of books published that deal with the birds of the South Asian region (here defined rather broadly as comprising the countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet). This is not a book to read but rather one to dip into, either following a lead to discover more about the works of a particular author, or simply to discover some of the fascinating facts sprinkled throughout the book.

An introduction sets the scene, with a brief mention of the main publications produced during each half century since the early 18th century. Then the main part of the book consists of an annotated listing of 1715 books published during the period 1713 to 2008. Most items are annotated with publication details and a summary of their contents. A good few have a very useful indication of their ornithological content and importance, written by the compiler and, where relevant, a list of new taxon names and type locality restrictions. Note that items 121 and 1692 are the same publication listed under different authors, as are 1475 and 1484, and that item 1672, although given a publication date of 1999, has still not been published! There are brief biographies of 219 former authors, mainly those with listed books, although some, e.g., Blaauw, have not apparently written any relevant books. Some other important authors, e.g., B. H. Hodgson, who published many scientific papers on birds of the region, but no books, are not included. A general index is followed by an index of 630 new scientific bird names appearing in the listed books, and finally there is an index of acronyms, co-authors and co-editors.

The definition of a ‘book’ that is adopted is very broad and includes some titles from serial publications that comprise a complete account of a country or region. Also included are a number of regional checklists, some in the form of pamphlets and perhaps not validly published. However, their inclusion can only be considered a benefit to researchers, many of whom have to rely on international abstract services, which are good at capturing papers in mainstream serials/periodicals but very variable in their coverage of minor periodicals and regional books.

As a fellow bibliographer I have greatly appreciated this book for drawing attention to a large number of references of which I was previously unaware, and for providing useful summaries of others about which I knew very little.

Many of the listed items are not readily available, even from specialist libraries, owing to their rarity or obscurity, and this is indicated by the fact that 773 are annotated as by the compiler. Some of these are now available online from the Biodivers ity Heritage Library (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org) and other similar projects, and it is to be hoped that the majority of relevant publications, which are out-of-copyright or copyright waived, will eventually become available in this way.

The compiler realises that there may be titles that he has not seen, read about or heard of and, certainly, this type of compilation can never be truly complete, both because of new publications and the large number of books that mention birds in passing. One publisher that is surprisingly deficient in the listings is the Zoological Survey of India, with 81 relevant items published between 1981 and 2008 missing—although all are readily available in India. The items include 17 out of the 18 from the State Fauna Series (only that for West Bengal is listed); this Series is clearly important for cataloguing the regional distribution of the avifauna (although the volumes perused are very incomplete in terms of their species coverage—that for West Bengal includes only 53.6% of the estimated 915 bird species recorded in the State).

The information on new names is stated to be extracted from Baker (1930, Fauna of British India. Birds Vols. VII & VIII) and Ripley (1982, Synopsis of the birds of India) but many of the new names in these works are not included. A quick check revealed about 170 extra names of taxa described from India, including quite a number in books not in the listings in Birds in books, e.g., eight names in G. A. Scopoli (1786–1788) Deliciae flora et faunae Insubricae. It is difficult to track down the details of all these new names, especially those that are now long-forgotten synonyms, and it would, therefore, be good to have a published list of all the relevant names for South Asia (including those from periodicals), with details of where they were published and information on the type localities.

These minor criticisms do not detract from the importance of this work, which will be of great value to anyone with an interest in the birds of South Asia and the literature describing them.

A review of my book by Bikram Grewal

2010-06-21T23:18:00.006+05:30

Birds in Book – Three Hundred years of South Asian Ornithology. A Bibliography
Aasheesh Pittie
Published by Permanent Black (Hard Cover, 846 pages, B&W, Price Rs. 795)
Sanctuary Asia

Many decades back Tim Inskipp, one of the great doyens of Indian ornithology, showed me his bibliography of works on birds of the Indian subcontinent and from thereon I was hooked. For many years I corresponded with him, keeping him updated on new material available in India, buying old book when I could find (more importantly afford) them. Then, one day, the esteemed editor of the book under review, sent me a CD Rom of the bibliography he personally maintained. It was so extensive and detailed (about 27 thousand entries) that there was nothing I could add to it and stopped my work instantly. Since them I had been badgering him about transforming this colossal work into print and so when eventually this tome arrived at my desk, I was overjoyed.
‘Birds in Books’ as the title implies is a bibliography spanning three hundred years of South Asian ornithology and lists over 1700 books, including field guides, monographs, checklists and other printed matter. Many are well researched and annotated. The areas covered include ¬– India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Maldives, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet making this book truly comprehensive and a brilliant example of one man’s obsession with the written word.
A brief introduction mentions the major publications from 1713 to 2009 and explains how the book is set out. The bulk of the book is naturally taken up by the bibliography portion. Brief biographies of about 200 authors are given at the end and three indexes enable the reader to search for particular items.
Since it is de rigueur for reviewers to be critical, I would like to add my bit. Alice, of Wonderland fame, once queried what is the use of a book without pictures? I now ask the same of the Editor for photographs of authors, facsimiles of book covers and perhaps some old bird illustrations would have added greatly to the joys of this book. That notwithstanding, my congratulations to both Aasheesh and Permanent Black for this stupendous effort.
—Bikram Grewal

At last! A first copy is at hand!

2010-04-14T22:04:00.001+05:30

Will we force the Narcondam Hornbill Aceros narcondami into extinction?

2010-04-09T14:04:00.002+05:30

Editorial in Indian Birds vol. 5 no. 5 (published on 5 April 2010).

Human actions, whether direct or indirect, are nowadays almost singularly responsible for nudging species towards their doom. Redemption from such a, potentially, lost cause lies in the adroit harnessing of resources, an assessment of the situation, the application of rigorous science, and hopefully, the forestalling of a threatened species careening towards extinction.

In India, vultures have been the hapless victims of a seemingly innocuous human act—that of using a drug as a painkiller for cattle—resulting in a population crash that teeters on the verge of extinction. Just ten years ago, who would have believed that E. H. Aitken’s laudatory “unsalaried public servants”1, would come to this? In the nick of time, the culprit that caused the vultures’ drooping death was identified. If the drug were to be banned, its usage completely stopped, the vultures would have a slim chance of recovery. Banning a drug is difficult, enforcing that ban, a nightmare. A tug-of-war between players only erodes resolve into time-fed laxity—all at the expense of the vultures’ future.

The Edible-nest Swiftlet Collocalia fuciphaga is found throughout southeastern Asia, but in India, it inhabits only the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Its pure ‘saliva’ nest is a victual delicacy in southeastern Asian cuisine, wherein lies its nemesis. Protecting the bird in the wild is impossible, given its preferred breeding terrain. The conservation solution is to ranch it in such a way that its eggs are slipped under surrogate Glossy Swiftlets C. esculenta, and its nest, harvested. A misinformed government order placed the Edible-nest Swiftlet in Schedule I of The Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, thereby protecting it totally, and paradoxically, blocking the only scientific solution that would ensure its continued survival on the islands. The only way forward was to remove the bird from Schedule I, allow its nest to be harvested, and prevent the species from becoming extinct (in India) by protection!

The third scenario is centered on the 6.82 km2, volcanic, Narcondam Island—home to the endemic Narcondam Hornbill Aceros narcondami. In 1905 the population of hornbills on Narcondam was c200, in 1972 c400, in 1998 c3602, in 2000 c4323, and in 2003 c3404. Why is this bird at a cul-de-sac, when its population has been more-or-less stable over one hundred years? The simple one-word answer is—goats. Lavkumar Khachar’s article highlights this issue and the urgent need for action. Will we allow goats to eat an island from under the Narcondam Hornbill? Indeed, will we allow them to do what we sent a posse of policemen to prevent Myanmar from doing—take the island away from India? Without vegetation holding it together, the volcanic rock will erode over time. Today it may sound fatalistic to say that an island devoid of vegetation might not survive the vagaries of tropical weather, but water and wind are an unstoppably potent force of erosion—and this, a one-way street to environmental disaster.

Island natural histories are mortally susceptible to invasions of flora and fauna and the introduction of goats on Narcondam is an act of criminal negligence, a slap in the face of our cognitive intelligence. The immediate solution is to remove all the goats, both captive and feral, from Narcondam, by whatever means necessary—delay would be catastrophic; implementation might restore equilibrium over time.

Paradoxically we only learn about a critically threatened species when it is already slipping downhill. Narcondam, however, is a situation that can be rectified easily. Yet, it is more than a decade since the late Ravi Sankaran of SACON raised these concerns and alarms in a report published by the institution, as did the late S. A. Hussain of BNHS, in several publications. The Indian government has taken no corrective action up till now. It is still not too late in the day to salvage the situation. If there is quick action, the magnificent Narcondam Hornbill will certainly survive, in splendid isolation, on a wild volcanic outcrop jutting above the storm-tossed waters of the Bay of Bengal—the unquestioned icon of a potential Peace Park between India and Myanmar and a symbol of successful conservation.

—Aasheesh Pittie

¹Aitken, E. H. 1947. The common birds of India. 3rd ed. Bombay: Thacker & Co. Ltd.

²Vijayan, L. & Sankaran, R. 2000. A study on the ecology, status and conservation perspectives of certain rare endemic avifauna of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Final report. Coimbatore: SACON.

³Yahya, H. S. A. & Zarri, A. A. 2003. Status, ecology and behaviour of Narcondam Hornbill, (Aceros narcondami) in Narcondam Island, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 99 (3): 434–445 (2002).

⁴Vivek, R. & Vijayan, V. S. 2003. Ecology and conservation of the Narcondam Hornbill Aceros narcondami at Narcondam Island Sanctuary, India. Coimbatore: SACON.

Books in my life: to see ourselves as others see us

2010-04-07T15:03:00.005+05:30

Nine lives: in search of the sacred in modern India. By William Dalrymple.

[Bloomsbury; 284 pp.]

The first book of Dalrymple’s that I read, i.e., before Nine lives, was The last Mughal. I loved it for the portrayal of an India I had learnt of almost furtively, in school. If only we were taught history the way it was narrated here. At several instances, as I read, tears welled up, at the helplessness of Bahadur Shah Zafar, not in himself as a person, bereft though he was, but as the legatee of a virasat completely incomprehensible to his insensitive contemporaries. But who is sensitive in times of war, and rebellion?

When Nine lives was published, I bought it enthusiastically, but it stood for almost five months on the shelves, in line with other unread works, biding its time. Then the author came to Hyderabad, and I resolved, ecstatically, to attend his reading. Lurking behind this wish was the bibliomaniac’s thrill of getting a first edition autographed by the author! How I would savour it for all time!

The evening arrived, and with it the tired-looking Scot. The reading went off quite well. He spoke a bit about the book, and read a couple of sections. There was a Q&A session with some interesting back-and-forth, but not without a display of that irritating habit people have at such moments, of expressing opinions rather than querying.

When I walked up to the table, and asked for an autograph, Bill almost snatched the volume from my hand, flattened it to the title page, asked my name, misspelled it and scrawled something illegible across its top, and middle. No eye contact, no moment of any sort of connect. There was a flight to catch at the end … and so …

No sooner did Nine lives resume its place in the lineup on my bookshelf, than a friend borrowed it from the missus! My precious autographed 1st ed! I could only dream of dog-eared pages, and split spines. Thankfully its dust jacket was left behind. Frantically I called the one who held my copy of Nine lives, and she had a good laugh at my genuine discomfiture! But the book came back in immaculate condition.

Now that I’ve read it, I can say that my favourite ‘life’, of the nine, is that of ‘the singer of epics’ (pp. 78–111). I warmed to this story immediately, primarily because it is based in Rajasthan, the land of my forbears (even though I’ve never visited it, except for two trips to Bharatpur, to birdwatch at the famed Keoladeo Ghana sanctuary), and also because it harks back to a time of pastoralism that we urbanites are separated from, but as Indians who survive on a largely ‘backward’ agrarian economy, are able to relate to spontaneously. In this chapter Dalrymple compares that lifestyle to the landscapes and livelihoods in the works of Tolstoy, and Turgenev. Many years ago, conversing with a friend who teaches Russian (he is Indian), I happened to mention that I partook the works of those masters. He asked me why? And I replied that the landscape, the people, and the rahan-sahan, which they wrote of, resembled the leisure and laid-back pathos of Indian pastoralist life.

You must read Nine lives yourself, to sink into the culture of this ancient land, but I’ll take you through some text that I particularly enjoyed. First, there is the incandescent one-liner from the bard, “the flame of my voice only really starts to glow after midnight” (p. 85). Then there is the intimate relationship between the patron and the beneficiary; the thakur and the bard. “Every prominent family of the land-holding Rajput caste, I discovered, inherited a family of oral genealogists, musicians and praise singers, who celebrated the family’s lineage and deeds. It was considered a great disgrace if these minstrels were forced by neglect to formally ‘divorce’ their patrons. Then they would break the strings of their instruments and bury them in front of their patron’s house, cutting the family off from the accumulated centuries of ancestral songs, stories and traditions. It was the oral equivalent of a magnificent library being burned to cinders.” (p. 87).

Before closing I must point you to a review of this work that appeared in Open, which speaks of an uncharacteristic complacency that has crept into this work by Dalrymple. Sadly, I must confess this is true. The editing should have been tighter.

Books in my life: On the shelves in June 2010!

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Visit the publisher's blog: In flight reading material

Books in my life: men and their madness for mountains

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Mountains of the mind: adventures in reaching the summit. By: Robert Macfarlane.

[Vintage Books: 306 pp.]

Mountains fascinate me no end, yet, I do not have the you-know-what to be a mountaineer. Altitude drives a peg in my cranium—the pump climbs behind the eyes and works overtime. The vacuum in the rib cage yawns like a chasm.

Occasionally I pick up a book that propels me beyond the stable plain of my flatland existence into the oxygen-starved realm of men, and their madness for mountains.

In the much-acclaimed Mountains of the mind, Macfarlane delves into the psyche of why men climb mountains. The work has as many insights into our characters, as it has descriptions of climbs, and vistas of vertical landscape. It speaks of the pursuit of fear, the concept of geologic time, the fascination for new landscape, and the foolhardy conquest of unbelievable pain, and suffering, both, of those who climb, and those they leave behind—sometimes forever.

One climbs a mountain first in the mind, then physically. It’s a slow process; cannot be rushed, and every climber has to come to terms with time and space that are sculpted and scrubbed over millennia into the ‘aesthetics of inordinate slowness’ (p. 44).

The sense of geologic time that he conveys is what I would like to leave you with. For the entire journey up a mountain, through human history, you will need to read the book.

‘To understand even a little about geology gives you special spectacles through which to see a landscape. They allow you to see back in time to worlds where rocks liquefy and seas petrify, where granite slops about like porridge, basalt bubbles like stew, and layers of limestone are folded as easily as blankets. Through the spectacles of geology, terra firma becomes terra mobilis, and we are forced to reconsider our beliefs of what is solid and what is not. Although we attribute to stone a great power to hold time back, to refuse its claims (cairns, stone tablets, monuments, statuary), this is true only in relation to our own mutability. Looked at in the context of the bigger geological picture, rock is as vulnerable to change as any other substance.

‘Above all, geology makes explicit challenges to our understanding of time. It giddies the sense of here-and-now. The imaginative experience of what the writer John McPhee memorably called “deep time”—the sense of time whose units are not days, hours, minutes or seconds but millions of years or tens of millions of years—crushes the human instant; flattens it to a wafer. Contemplating the immensities of deep time, you face, in a way that is both exquisite and horrifying, the total collapse of your present, compacted to nothingness by the pressures of pasts and futures too extensive to envisage. And it is a physical as well as cerebral horror, for to acknowledge that the hard rock of a mountain is vulnerable to the attrition of time is of necessity to reflect on the appalling transience of the human body’. (p. 43).

Silence of the sparrows

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My childhood was spent among sparrows. There were other winged commensals too, that shared those golden days with me, but it was sparrows I felt closest to. Our house had an infinite number of crevices and cornices where these birds nested and a small garden and goshala bordered with stretches of loose sand, that they dusted in. Late afternoons were chosen for this surprisingly disciplined, communal affair. The fine sand had warmed by that hour, from a sun that slipped behind buildings on its journey to the other side of the world, leaving the dusting area in gentle shadow. Manik the gaiwala would have finished chopping fodder for Lakshmi and Nutan, inadvertently scenting the afternoon stillness with moist, sappy, resinous aromas of bruised verdure, setting those bovines into an impatience of nodding heads, flaring nostrils and unbelievably widening eyes, till he poured it into their fodder-boxes, barely avoiding spilling it all around as they nosed the flow of falling pieces. Not that it mattered, for their rough tongues later lapped up whatever dropped outside the box. It was between this time and an hour or so later, when he sat next to Laxmi, on his haunches, with a bucket between his knees to milk her, that the sparrows began their daily ritual. Sometimes they would continue while the milk sang in the bucket.

Twenty to thirty sparrows, cocks and hens, would gather on the ground between the henna hedge and the goshala, in an apparently meaningless flock, till a few of them shook off their listlessness by puffing up and ruffling their feathers, twisting this way and that on a patch of particularly soft sand, forming, in the process, a tiny rim of the fine powder around them. The sand billowed in miniscule clouds around them, passing through their feathers, suffocating irritating lice and mites. Their activity attracted those around and soon there was a line of sparrows patiently waiting their turn at the dusting bowl! Impatience and intemperance were put down with a sharp peck. Patience rewarded by the duster hopping off, making place for another’s ablutions. It was a safe place in a moment of distraction, for others were alert and shelter from bored canines in search of fun or a deadly shikra, close at hand in the spiky henna. On days they chose not to dust themselves, for whatever unknown reasons, remnants of the dusting patch, with its scattering of tiny depressions, remained on the ground, a microcosm of life’s infinite rituals—meaningful to the observant, hidden from the preoccupied.

The Hyderabad of 20-30 years ago has changed from a city of minarets to one of massive billboards. In our hurried preoccupation with transforming the city into a modern metropolis, we forgot the house sparrow. Perhaps it’s ordinariness, its commonness, it’s dull omnipresence, like some old-fashioned traits—etiquette, sentience, an adab that was unique to Hyderabad—could not keep up with the blinding speed of development, the new culture of big, bright and brash that seized us with a manic frenzy. Before we realized it, sparrows had disappeared from our midst. Increasingly at parties, at street-corner gatherings, at offices and in meetings, the hot question was, “Where have all the sparrows gone? Why have they forsaken us?”

Those are not easy questions to answer. Sparrows have declined in many parts of India, as they have in England. They thrive in some cities—Mumbai, Delhi—but have almost disappeared from others (Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad). In England its population has dropped by more than 50% since the ’70s. We are not as meticulous about our data, so we do not knowthe scientific trend of our sparrow populations. But we are aware of a reduction in numbers!

If this decline was a question of housing, of modern architecture lacking the extravagance of alcoves, cornices, crevices, and stucco, versus older structures, basking in their resplendence—there are the modern cities cited above that contradict. If the presence of man, so essential for this commensal, was the question—for the sparrow thrives amidst the press of humanity—nobody can complain of a drop in human populations. What then is the matter with sparrows? Is it food, living space, or a combination of various situations? One can but conjecture and theorize.

Food could be a reason. Most families, buy neatly packed grain from shops. Some time ago, these would be cleaned at home and the chaff thrown for birds. But sparrows do not exist by grain alone. They need insects and arthropods too in their diet, especially while raising a brood of ravenous nestlings. The use of pesticides in urban areas, private and municipal gardens and within homes, has increased hundredfold in the past two decades. Their harmful effects are unrecorded scientifically but are graphic in fact. Living space might be a reason—the lack of holes and cornices in modern architectural structures—our eagerness for clean-lined, designer-book homes. How many of us tolerate a bird’s untidy nest within our dwellings? How many, let the web of a spider be? And who wants sandy places in these days of cement and concrete? The very trails within gardens and larger parks are under threat of being cemented and paved! Or is it something intrinsic that was catalyzed by our actions? Perhaps the sparrow needs the society of an unknown number of brethren to survive successfully. That could be a genetic prerequisite. If the depleting populations of certain species reach a critical low in their numbers, they are incapable of a recovery. But what, finally, is the cause of this decline? There seems to be no single answer yet.

One thing however is certain. They have not forsaken us. We have them. The decline of the sparrow is a symptom of a uniquely human malady. Our carelessness towards all other life, save our own. This matters as we have the power to alter our environment like no other living force on earth does. And if we are careless towards life, can we take care of ourselves? Sometimes I wonder which is worse—to be blind or to see and not comprehend?

[Published in The Hindu dated 10 December 2002.]

Books in my life

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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
[Bloomsbury; 248 pp.]

I had my sleeves rolled up, while we waded knee-deep among tomes in the stacks of a bookshop, marauding for books for the library of a private club. Dr R., as well-thumbed in his knowledge about books as a writer's thesaurus, casually added an intriguingly titled paperback to the steadily increasing heap of goodies on the floor. I could never resist an odd title, cover, or binding; so I picked it up, and bought a copy. What a lovely investment that was! Thirty percent off the Indian distributor's price; subsequently read by four people (and still in circulation!); so almost free for me!

Let me say straight away that this is another book about books; fictionalized, I agree, but with what a heady recipe—books and the love of reading, letters and the urge to write, WWII, good amongst evil, evil by itself, love for life, rebellion, goodness. Let me also say that one is reminded of the classic 84 Charing Cross [of which another time] while reading this, but there the resemblance ends. Despite mind-numbing ideology, despite merciless peer pressure, despite the repetitive madness that has overtaken the world over the millennia, there be hearts that beat to a different drummer—that people a civilization of goodness and fuel the only sanity there is.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a paean for those who stamp ownership rights inside a book, no sooner it is bought, by inscribing their name, and sometimes, address. It begins with a letter written to the owner of a book, from one who now owns it. Friendship blossoms through the mutual pleasure of reading. Stories are spun in real life and real time…and the work takes flight.

I read it in such a dappled daze that there is not a single pencilled remark or underlined passage that I could quote for you. But I can say this with complete conviction:

If you are a reader of books, and moreover, if you love books, this one takes your hand, leads you to your favorite sofa, tucks you in, warms your heart, and soars your spirit.

Books in my life

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The uncommon reader by Alan Bennett

I acquiesce to a friend's suggestion, and begin jotting in this blog, a few lines about books that I've read, am reading, or hope to read in the future. My reading habits are notoriously meandering, snagging at benevolent rocks, swishing through clumps of reeds, tickled by overhanging branches, running a short straight course, slowly stagnating in fanning deltas, amalgamating into the soup that holds aloft our collective and individual continents.

Books about books is a genre I warmed to late in life—thus qualifying as an opsimath. I came to it, of course, book by book, but once arrived, a whole new world lay ahead. I wandered onto this uncommon path by way of a genetic urge to collect. Philatelist father…bibliomaniac son. By the way, dad too was afflicted with the gentle madness once, till he passed it on to me. Not that I'm complaining! But about this journey, another time. Now about a little gem that I read, in one sitting, a few days ago, and then passed on to the missus of eclectic reading tastes, who, thank heavens, pronounced it 'unputdownable'.

The uncommon reader of Bennett's endearing work is none other than Queen Elizabeth, who stumbles upon books late in life. As she begins to be drawn into the world of books, her life changes, as do her views about people, administration and governance. Feeling and emotion towards fellow humans bloom in her, despite her equerries' disapproval. The immortal world of words casts its spell and Her Majesty begins to think about what she's reading, and begins to change subtly. Books begin to clarify her thinking, her development as a monarch and a human being…And through her charming infatuation, Bennett speaks about reading and books and their place in our evolution as humans. I'll leave you with a couple of quotes:

'The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something lofty about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic…books did not defer. All books were equal…[reading] was anonymous; it was shared; it was common. And she who had lived a life apart now found that she craved it. Here in these pages and between these covers she could go unrecognised.'

Trekking to Tala Kaveri

2009-03-05T10:32:00.003+05:30

A Black Eagle, skimming the treetops, slips over us in a shallow, hesitant glide, as we emerge from the verdure vaults onto the main road. It disappears over the tree line as quickly as it appeared. Its brooding, dark plumage displays the bulging reined-in power of a raptor. Its diagnostic yellow legs seem sinister in their contrast. Quickening heartbeats and a deep sense of satisfaction at this sighting encapsulate the joys of this trek. But let me start at the beginning.

The hamlet of Bhágmandla (880 m.) is beginning to stir when we reach it at 7.45a.m. on the last day of the millennium. We had started from Peremboocolly Estate (coffee, cardamom, pepper) near Chettalli (1,390 m.), where we are staying, while it was still dark, at 6 a.m. The drive via Madikere (1,170 m.) is bracingly cold and uneventful, except for some spectacular views of the fog-filled stillness of luminescent valleys lit by the spontaneity of a lightening dawn. Pausing to admire one such panorama, we see humps of hills porpoising away into the distance in fading hues of blue as they merge with a silvery horizon. The air we inhale is as fresh as a cut cucumber, and as refreshing.

Entering Bhágmandala we spot some pilgrims, returning from a dip in the sangam of the Káveri and the first of her tributaries, the Kannike. "Yes, there is a short-cut to Tala Káveri. You can walk to it," informs a dripping gentleman, wrapped in a soaking white cotton dhoti, shivering in the early morning zephyr, or perhaps with the religious fervour of his cleansing! For it is

believed that once a year, even the mother of all Indian rivers, the holy Gangá, travels through subterranean channels, to bathe in the Káveri, and purge herself of the detritus of sin left behind by an overload of repentant sinners. Such is the purity of this Dakshin Gangá (the southern Ganges).

A helpful police official directs us to park the vehicle in the police station's compound. I suppose that is the safest place he can think of when we tell him our plan, promising to come for the vehicle after five to six hours! While Amitabh drives away to park the car, Prakriti and I ready our packs, stamping at the cold and watching our breath hang in visible clouds as though

we exhale steam. Soon Amitabh joins us and we start off down an inconspicuous path, leading away from the open area (used by buses to make a 'U' turn) past a school and some government offices. Here we walk under large canopied trees growing on either side of the path. A Black-headed Oriole flits from one to the other, calling as it disappears inside the foliage. Excitedly we peer into the greenery, but the golden bird has vanished.

Ahead is a narrow, cultivated valley across which begins the hill we've come to climb. The entire golden-yellow field is covered with stacks of the dry brown crop, neatly arranged in rectangular blocks. The rising sun lights up the entire valley like a richly textured, warm quilt. Little and Median Egrets and a Paddy Bird (in breeding plumage) peck about almost desultorily

in the fallow field. A White-breasted Kingfisher glowers down its scarlet beak from an overhead wire, concentrating on the field below. In the distance, Red-rumped and Common Swallows appear like musical score on an azure sheet, as they perch in rows on stretches of overhead wires. A few glossy black Jungle Crows mope around for they haven't yet found a victim to chivvy. Some confident Jungle Mynas strut and swagger in a part of the field, as though optimism at the break of day is an auspicious sign! It is at least contagious, for we stride across the fields with alacrity, giddy with lung-fulls of invigorating oxygen and eager for some good birding.

Our destination lies a short five km. away (eight km. by the metal road) – not the sort that is reached after hiking a couple of days through uninhabited country, where even the sound of a distant engine's roar does not intrude. But we are promised a trek punctuated with intervals of solitude and top-class, deeply satisfying birding! Since there cannot be a better way of ending one millennium and ringing in another, we jump at the opportunity.

Scarred paths

We find ourselves climbing a slope that is devastated. Habitat decay due to overuse of resources radiates like concentric ripples on the surface of a pond around all human settlements, and Bhágmandla is no exception. On our left, shrubs and trees have been thoughtlessly hacked for firewood. Debris of this carnage lies around on the much-used path, as mute evidence. On our right is a barbed wire-enclosed private estate with young bushes of coffee. I wonder for how long nature will allow our myopia to ravage her finiteness.

Taken aback by this unexpected scene we grit our teeth in helplessness and hope that the vegetation ahead is intact. Pausing to survey the damage I espy a movement in the tangle of woody undergrowth. Black-capped Babbler! The adaptability of birds is amazing! It seems like we've stumbled upon a small mixed feeding party. Four Black-capped Babblers rocket exasperatingly from twig to twig, denying me the view that is balm to a birder's soul, till one pauses, bewildered at this contorted thing with enormous eyes! In that moment I have my bird! A few White-eyes, emitting their Tanpuraesque background drone and, a male Monarch Flycatcher, brilliant highlighter-blue, are fellow-hunters. It's amazing how such dazzling birds as the Monarch do not stand out in their surroundings, like neon signs do in urban malls. There are others too, hunting behind the bush. A Tailor Bird "towhits", followed by the mysterious calls of unfamiliar birds. My peninsular birder's ear cannot decipher them. But this sense of mystery is essential for the enjoyment of wilderness. What is there to relish in life if all is known and catalogued and the uniquely human sense of wonder, lost? A lone Brown Shrike observes the scene, perched at the tip of a twig, so still in its vigil that the two seem to merge. Ahead, mercifully, greens begin to dominate browns.

Greener horizons

The sound of avian arguments floats from ahead. Walking past a screen of vegetation we see a tree with a profusion of small blood-red flowers. A species of Erythrina perhaps? The entire feathered neighbourhood seems to have descended for breakfast on its branches. Prominent in numbers and belligerence are Black Bulbuls. They seem to spend more time squabbling and chasing each other than feeding. A Crimson-throated Barbet raps out his monologue from the topmost branch. Four Black-crested Bulbuls guzzle nectar among the higher branches. They belong to the southern race Pycnonotus melanicterus gularis – evident from the telltale ruby-coloured spot on their throats, as though stained in the act of stealing nectar from these blossoms!

An hour has passed and this seems a good spot for a bite and a steaming cup of cheer. Sandwiches, fingers of tangy sweet oranges, wafers and hot tea – and before us this amazing drama of nature. Better birding is hard to come by!

Rapidly approaching shrill whistles are heard from beyond the tree line. Four male Scarlet Minivets burst into view overhead, pursuing a single yellow female. They seem inflamed with passion while she seems drained of all blood! There is a temporary respite for all when they too settle into the resplendent tree. Two Bronzed Drongos traipse after aerial insects from its branches. A dashing Blackheaded Cuckoo-Shrike arrives.

The blossom-studded tree stands in the private estate and may have survived the axe for precisely that reason. But here is an example of its role, its vital nuts-and-bolts utility as an ecological fulcrum in the wilderness. We savour the interdependence that hums here, the co-mingling of life. In the simple act of flowering – a manifestation of its sexual effusion suffused with colour, fragrance and plentitude – it procreates with the unwitting help of other, altogether different Classes of life! Insects, birds and mammals! Unaware of their bizarre dual role in this little skit except that of the gourmand, they descend to the orgy. From flower to flower and from tree to tree they pub-hop, clandestine pollinators and dispersal agents. Its sex for some and food for others. Nature works in intricate ways. Even cyberspace pales when you begin to think of the inter-connectedness of a hundred million species!

With orange-scented fingertips we brush at crumbs, rinse cups and rise to proceed. The path begins to climb and the estate gives way to woods that slope away from us, affording good visibility into the canopy. The hill rises on our left, also shrouded with vegetation. Ferns decorate its dew-drenched shoulder. The path itself seems infrequently used and is generously tenanted

with a variety of mosses and lichens. A gentle silence breathes through the world, reflected in the wholesome satiety of moist leaves carpeting the forest floor, in the companionship of duetting Indian Scimitar Babblers, in the convoy of black ants marching purposefully across our path. Conversation ceases as we realise the worth and effectiveness of other senses.

Coming around a bend I see a brown flycatcher perched low in the sun-dappled undergrowth. Muscicapa muttui! According to the Hornbill, 1966 (2):9, the bird was named after a favourite servant "Muttu" by the famous expert on Sri Lankan avifauna, Layard, while he was based in Sri Lanka, the Brown-breasted Flycatcher (also known as Layard's Flycatcher) leads an enigmatic, seemingly furtive existence in its peregrinations across the subcontinent from the northeastern tip to its wintering quarters in the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. Dull brown in colour, except for a glistening white throat, a pale lower mandible and large eyes like moist dark brown papaya seeds, it seems uninteresting after the panorama of colour we've just left behind. It is confiding. It is quiet. It hunts flying insects with deadly accuracy, flitting after them in the shadowy region below the canopy, like a well-oiled avian missile. The mystery that shrouds its life, its ecology, its mysterious wanderings through our country, its stubborn insistence on inhabiting patches and corridors of evergreen and moist-deciduous forests at just that altitude – knock me onto the floor. I am non-existent in its world, except as the perpetrator and destroyer of its habitat. I wonder whether this exasperatingly beautiful, intricately mysterious world will ever forgive humanity's hard footfall upon its soil!

Amitabh has gone ahead, after an orange-skirted apparition. The Malabar Trogon has him thrilled to bits. Neither of us has seen one this close or so clearly. Such a perfectly square-tipped tail! Speechlessly we gape at its exquisite symmetry. At the drape and finery of its plumage. At its uncanny ability to juxtapose a bit of greenery between us. What wouldn't I give to metamorphose into a branch of that leafy hillside, and be blessed by the touch of a Trogon!

Prakriti, tiring of the climb and impatient to end it, points out a Greater Racket-tailed Drongo. Suddenly we are surrounded by birds. Sunbirds, Minivets, Flycatchers, Yellow-browed Bulbuls, a White-throated Ground Thrush. This is another mixed-hunting party that moves through the forest in an incredible show of cooperation, understanding and, non-violence. Its members cannot comprehend such human values but have none-the-less been selected by evolution to enact them! Each species exploits a unique niche for its food. There is no transgression, no trespassing and no bad blood.

Near the top of our climb we emerge from the tree cover to see another estate on our right. This one has very few trees on it. The plains of Kodagu stretch to the horizon. On a lone, pepper draped, densely foliaged tree, as though clinging to the last vestiges of its disappearing world, is a White-bellied Tree Pie. It hunts caterpillars and swallows them with relish, wiping its

beak beside it on the branch like a truant child might use a tablecloth! Then preens its feathers. I have never witnessed a better distribution of white, black, grey and brown on such a small canvas! I would love to loiter and soak up more 'atmosphere'. As I am sure would Amitabh. But there are promises to keep.

Nature's thespians

On the edge of the hill's shoulder, above and behind us, is a tree that's taller than its neighbours. Five Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters sally-hunt insects from its branches. After a concentrated chase they return in a sweeping, satisfied arc to their perch where the snack is swallowed. Again and again they perform. In this magnificent amphitheatre – with its azure backdrop, its chequered earthy coloured surroundings lit by the oblique rays of a rising sun – their act is so graceful in its simplicity, so unattainable in its perfection and alas so threatened by our callousness that a mixture of emotions – rage, helplessness, futility – jam in my throat. From a branch of the same tree, cantilevered over the valley, a Golden-backed Woodpecker hangs upside-down and knocks on wood.

When we hit the main road, we can see the temple-complex at Tala Káveri, still about a kilometre away. It is noon and we are hungry. Perching on the parapet of the road, facing another valley, we pass around soft juicy apples, bone-dry biscuits and another steaming cup. A Kestrel wafts delicately overhead. With effortless ease she slides on eddies of thermals, surveying the

slopes of the valley for victuals. At the suspicion of one she hovers in mid-flight, as though pinned against the blue sky. Dissatisfied, she planes away to a different part of her beat. Another hoverer, the exquisite, ruby-eyed, Black-shouldered Kite plays the nearby thermals, produced by the gradual heating of the bald hilltops. In the southern portion of the Western Ghats, forests give way to grasslands after a certain elevation. But here I suspect the denudation of these precincts by human hand, not biogeography.

It would be simplistic to say that the Káveri exists because of creatures like the White-bellied Treepie and the Brown-breasted Flycatcher. But they wouldn't survive in another environment without the forests that blanket these Western Ghats. And where would the river be without these trees? And us? Where would we be, our history, our culture, the very fabric of our civilisation, without the river? The presence of these birds, as indeed of all other creatures in their appropriate habitats, indicates the health of our surroundings. If we view them as traffic lights on the super highway of our un-controlled 'development'– we might avoid accidents. In their happiness is our happiness. In their survival, ours. Would you now rather say that we exist because of the Flycatcher?

King of the river:

The Káveri is home to the Mahseer, a Cyprinoid fish with such spunk that sport fishing aficionados make a beeline for its banks. This magnificently multi-hued, large-scaled fighting fish has a wide-ranging, omnivorous diet that includes fallen flowers, aquatic plants, seeds, insects, earthworms, molluscs, crabs, smaller fish, water-snails, and shrimps. Hundred-pounders

were often caught 60-70 years ago, five foot monsters with 38-inch girths! The record fish was hooked by G.P. Sanderson and was estimated to weigh 150 lb! Officially, J. deWet Van Ingen landed the granddaddy of south Indian Mahseer in 1946 from the Kabini River, an enormous fish, 5'6" long with a 41" girth and a 10" diameter maw. It weighed all of 120 lb! These sizes are the stuff of dreams today, with the 20-40 pound fish found that inhabit the waters mere shadows of their ancestors. When caught, these fish are promptly released back into their waters. Nirad Muthanna of Bangalore holds the record for an Indian angler (see picture), a massive 99 lb. Golden Mahseer landed along the Kabini after an hour-long battle in September 1999. But life is not easy for the Mahseer any longer. Large fish survive only where commercial angling is allowed. Elsewhere they are not allowed to vegetate at leisure in the fertile waters of the Káveri and its tributaries, not allowed to feel the river run through them when they propel themselves upstream to spawn in slow flowing stretches of clear water. The despicable use of dynamite has devastated vast portions of the river and the life that it supports and dams prevent Mahseer from swimming upriver to their breeding grounds.

Pittie, A. 2000. Trekking to Tala Káveri. Sanctuary Asia XX (6): 34–38.

Some thoughts on an urban forest: Kasu Brahmanand Reddy National Park, Hyderabad

2009-03-05T10:26:00.003+05:30

One winter day, two years ago, two friends and I visited the Kasu Brahmanand Reddy National Park (KBR Park). It was early morning and bright sunshine was trying hard to dissipate the night’s chill. Oblique rays of sunlight sculpted the landscape into crisp textures, surrounding us with clarity rarely found in a large urban agglomeration, like Hyderabad. The park was alive with birds and one of my friends, an Englishman, could not restrain his amazement when he blurted, “they are popping from every bush, aren’t they!” Birds love such days. So do bird watchers! There were at least half a dozen types of warblers scrambling in the undergrowth or falling off the tips of leaves from the outer periphery of tree crowns. A pair of rufousbacked shrikes spoke in a muted sub-song. The ruby-eyed, silver feathered, blackwinged kite—master predator of open scrub and grassland habitats—swung up over the tree line, in one smooth arc, displaying grace and power and joy. Purple sunbirds fussed from branch to branch, one male, resplendent in iridescent purple, flashed red epaulets on quivering wings, as he displayed to a drab olive colored female. Avian music rose from the plants all around us, and filled the air with sounds of sweet exuberance. Such moments are generally experienced in wilderness areas. To be able to experience them within a large city is truly fantastic. Such is the charm of an urban forest!

Detailed and organized taxonomic surveys have not been conducted inside KBR Park. But ad hoc amateur listings of the flora and fauna provide ample evidence that it is a veritable storehouse of local Natural History. Frankly, these creatures have as much right to exist in their habitat, undisturbed, as we have to do so in ours. Their proximity and their presence enrich us. But it is the fashion of the day to evaluate the economic value of everything and not be satisfied by the mere existence of something. So I give some examples of how KBR Park, by its very existence, contributes considerably to our well being. It is a major green lung in our city, and it is free. The government need not spend a single Rupee in its upkeep, as it is natural, unlike parks like Sanjivayya Park, Indira Park and Public Gardens. The vegetation of this Park requires neither water nor fertilizer. It is self-sufficient, as indeed Nature herself is! It cleans the air and absorbs atmospheric, vehicular and sound pollution. It is a natural sponge during rains, preventing runoff, thus allowing water to seep into the soil and recharge subterranean rills. It is the catchment area for water bodies within the city, like Hussain Sagar and Durgam Cheruvu, which the government is promoting as major tourist sites. More ‘benefits’ of the Park can be listed, but these should suffice. How much, pray, is clean air and drinking water worth, to us, beleaguered and gasping that we are, for these basic elements of survival? The answer is obvious and it does not require wisdom to realize the worth of the Park. Just, common sense!

To preserve the nature of this unique Park, its atmosphere of an urban wilderness, there are certain dos and don’ts, which would normally form a management plan for the Park. Indeed, the drawing-up of such a plan should be the first action of the managers of the Park, the A.P. Forest Department. Surprisingly, a plan does not exist! I have been a regular, wide-eyed visitor of this verdant oasis and give below some observations and suggestions on the current management practices in the Park, with reference to the habitat and the public.

HABITAT MANAGEMENT

The most important physical feature of the Park is the wall that encloses it. But for this wall, the Park may not have been what it is today! Therefore it follows that the maintenance of this wall be a primary objective of the management. Any broken portion should be repaired immediately so infiltration, human as well as animal, is curtailed. Woodcutters and poachers wait for such opportunities and may actually cause damage to portions of the wall to ply their trade. A break in the wall opens the habitat for our mammalian commensals—pariah dogs and feral cats. Their accidental introduction into the Park will cause havoc with a fauna that has got used to the absence of such ferocious predators. Ground nesting birds will suffer drastically. The other points of entry for these creatures are the two gates to the Park. These are kept open at different times of the day and are so wide that a persistent dog can slip through easily. A simple “cattle baffler” of spaced out pipes laid over a pit in front of the gates, will prevent unwanted animals from getting into the Park. I have seen dogs sporting red collars, within the Park. These poor creatures have reportedly been collected from various parts of the city, castrated or spayed and released at random, by animal welfare organizations. Many are seen loitering on the roads, petrified and lost. Some fatally ill, since the operation demands rest, which they do not get.

Deadwood is an essential ingredient in the organic cycle of the Park. In it reside insects savored by woodpeckers. When it falls, insects and arthropods break it down so that it is absorbed gradually into the soil, replenishing nutrients constantly, in a classic cycle of self-sufficiency. This deadwood should not be removed from the Park.

As a policy, exotic flora and fauna should not be introduced into the Park. Every action should be scrutinized so that exotics do not inadvertently slip in. Lantana is rampant today and Parthenium gaining ground fast. Thoughtless acts like importing red laterite soil for repairing paths has resulted in the import of seeds of these exotics! The forest department should also stop planting trees within the Park. They should realize that it is a dynamic ecosystem where the results of such acts cannot be fathomed and generally result in the degeneration of the habitat. It should also desist from releasing animals like blackbuck, cheetal, etc., for the area is too small and will be over-grazed by these ungulates in no time. The unwitting transformation of a habitat cannot be part of any management policy. Safeguarding the uniqueness of a habitat, should.

Trails will deteriorate drastically due to the action of water. Sound engineering of paths through low-lying areas will solve the problem. Water will not be constrained to flow through narrow pipes below trails, and invariably washes away the soil around the pipes. In such places, small arch bridges would serve the purpose better. The number of trails should not be increased. Neither should their total length nor width. Of primary concern is the environment through which the trail passes. Minimum interference is the best management policy for any wilderness area

Management of visitors

Education is the best ‘use’ the Park can be put to. As an open-air laboratory of Natural History it provides ample opportunities for schools and other educational institutions for nature education. Concepts of nature study like water regime, soil regime, ecology, etc. can be taught with live specimens and in a dynamic habitat! The department should design and provide necessary educational material in the form of information boards, checklists of fauna and flora, life-histories of prominent species and/or Families, etc.

If the department decides to maintain a portion of the Park as a core area, open only for internal maintenance and special faunal and floral studies, this area should be strictly out of bounds for the public and should be ‘policed’ by the department. A wilderness area cannot be allowed to degenerate into a sports complex even in its buffer zone. Recreation within the Park should be restricted to pursuits related to Natural History only. But KBR Park has a unique problem. It is used by people for walking, in the morning and evening, for physical exercise. Under the law, this is an illegal act within a national park.

When a residential area was planned in Jubilee Hills, the government would have set aside enough land for parks and other recreational activities. If such areas exist, they should be developed and ‘walkers’ redirected to them for their perambulations. If they do not exist, where have they gone?

We cannot create wilderness areas like the KBR Park. It is an enlightened society that recognizes this fact and uses it to advantage, even if it means to let something merely exist!

The bouquet of Benishaan

2009-03-05T10:23:00.001+05:30

Benishaan mangoes will always have a flavour in my life that is steeped in the dry heat of the forests of Warangal. When I sit before a bowl-full of this rich aromatic fruit, its hugely opulent bouquet takes me back to that May in 1980 when a group of us had gone to Eturnagaram Reserve Forest. It was hot, very hot. We would pile into a small Willis 4-wheel drive, chauffeured by a short, rustic man, full of wry wit—but with enough patience and bonhomie to survive the crazy ordeal of driving our zany bunch around in the tinder-dry jungles.

It was beedi-leaf season and most of the animals were disturbed by the inflow of hundreds of humans, brought in on daily wages to collect the leaf that is smoked all over India. In search of wilderness, we had come to this forest, like long-weary desert travelers in quest of an oasis. The romance of being ‘on safari’ gave us an unbelievable stamina to tramp through ankle-deep leaf-litter, dry enough to make our feet sound like a chugging train; through mazes of thorny bushes whose sharpened defenses seemed to have atrophied in the heat and parchedness of this land into small, bitter curves of resistance; through the middle of tiny damp floored creeks—whose soddenness could not seemingly evaporate through the almost grotesquely green branches overhead. These so thick and intermeshed that chinks of sunlight fought their way gingerly to reach the numberless shadows and make it a permanently dim dawn below.

The stench of rotting vegetation underfoot stirred by our cautiously palpating, splashy feet, make us pucker our noses awhile. But how long can a man walk through unknown country—brushing aside generations of webs woven to trap thin, vaporous chemicals ensconced within precariously gossamer bodies of arthropods; ducking, so a branch does not scratch an eye; peering up into the world of tense, silent leaves, pressing upon us their humid weight sucked up through numberless trillions of cells in an endless cycle as old as life itself—to glimpse a movement, an odd-shaped leaf, a shadow darker than those around it, so dark in fact that the brilliant aquamarine were subdued into invisibility; the thing upper-most in our minds—to experience novelty! To see, to comprehend, to inhale pristineness! The agony and the ecstasy of this suspense is too much for a wrinkled nose to stand on. It has to fall into normality, alert for other, unknown whiffs that might pump adrenaline, rather than let the methanish vapor of disintegrating fiber distract it!

One day we walked, waded, paddled, and dawdled through the shallow Dayyam Vagu’s cool waters. Hopping gingerly from sandbank to sandbank, like city-dwellers jumping road puddles—we soon realized the futility of it all and simply took off our footwear. Pleasure is walking through calf-deep water, in 40 degrees centigrade, stopping now and then to immerse cupped-hands into the liquid and splash it over one’s head—otherwise so hot as to cook the brain within! At times the walk became palpably purposeless. We kept at it unconsciously, sub-consciously aware of a hidden pursuit. Then some one saw the magical glide of the giant malabar squirrels. Stunned momentarily into silence we stood rooted, while the water flowed below, gently reminding us of natural history. No swinger of ropes within a big top can stir joy so spontaneously in my heart — as did those squirrels that afternoon. Mundane chores of daily life disintegrate into motes of nothingness in front of a facile gliding squirrel! How unaware, how unconscious of our awe, how miraculously distant from our petty troubles! No poet can describe its simplicity. Its perfect, arcing, well oiled falls—from tree to tree!

These forays of ours into the ‘unknown’, would last all day. We would cover 20-25kms at times! Humidity, like invisible rain, made life miserable. The nights were one big sweltering discomfort. Mosquitoes, and so repellent; which used to make the skin clammy. And the total dearth of breeze, as though we were stuck in the Doldrums. Discomfort like this drove me out of bed. I could never make myself go beyond the wash of yellow light, into the darkness. It was something more than the sudden chill I had felt when one night, walking down the path from ‘our’ hut to the one in which BC and M were staying—my feet in Hawaii chappals—I stopped in mid-stride and switched on the torch. There, between my feet, as though caught in the act of some skullduggery, was a 3 inch long black scorpion, waving its tail overhead like a flag. All pretensions of field natural history vanished and within the beat of that second I craved to be an ordinary armchair naturalist! The torch, thenceforth, was kept open. Moon or no moon. I never mustered enough guts to venture into the realm of darkness, so sharply defined by the harshness of the bare electric bulbs. Prominent among my inhibitions must certainly have been some incomprehensible fear. The heart would flutter inside me when I scampered to the dining room, to wake up one of the boys for bed tea. But why did I get up into those early hours, just about to light? Was it because I was an early morning baby and the newness of the world which surrounded me, so drastically different from the soupy comfort of my mother’s womb, still knocks within my breast a beat that hearkens me to rise early in strange places?

There were times during the day when everything became dead quiet, but not at dawn. A dawn chorus lifts the curtain of darkness with its enthusiasm. Bubbles of sound burst forth through the thinning blackness like ribbons of light heralding dawn. How many people who throng to music concerts have risen at break of day to listen to the greatest orchestra on earth? It is said that music springs from the earth, yet so few pay heed to this earth-poetry. It’s spontainity however, needs neither audience nor applause. An end in itself, it is audible to those who comprehend. Have you ever hear the koel utter a false note? Have you ever felt the flow of a magpie-robin’s song falter? Has not the stentoreous sarus clashed like the cymbals of the very earth? Has not the screech of a parakeet embedded itself into your heart? Into this event I used to wake up and listen enraptured as wisps of darkness melted away all around me.

And believe me, it is no different in the city. Wake up one early morning, before the rays of a rising sun have brought the primal blush in the sky, and listen to bird song. There will be fewer musicians, no doubt, but the notes will be neither less true, nor less heart stopping. The koel will let forth in summer and often the dumpy little staidly dressed, pied bushchat, an unobtrusive bit of black feathers, pour lilting notes in short golden arias. But you have to listen. And once you get the tunes into your head, you will recognize the voices anywhere in your life, in whatever situation you be, and will smile to yourself at their familiarity. That will be your intimate and secret treasure.

The call of one family of birds always struck me. The cuckoos. Whether the bi-syllabic call of the familiar koel—urbanized, swank, prankster—or the ventriloquial utterances of the others. The Indian cuckoo, the hawk-cuckoo, the plaintive cuckoo and the pied-crested cuckoo. Their penetrating, persistent calls, like the seconds-hand of earth’s clock, would echo, reverberate, rebound and filter through the woods all day. Like long distance calls, perfected over ages. Wherever we tramped, these birds seemed to follow with their song-lines, themselves elusive. Only hard-headed persistence in following one call, showed up a pathetically drab, indistinct patch of grey and white and black—this and the thrumming air around it, and the silence of the woods magnificently amplifying its try-syllabic call. An Indian cuckoo!

The character of a place, its ambience, is relative to the moods and temporal perceptions of the observer. In Eturnagaram, the bouquet of Benishaan, rising from a bowl in front of me, at lunch and at dinner was overpowering. The heat of the day was a presence unseen and continued in its stillness into night when the temperature dropped marginally but the all-pervading quiescence remained. It was in fact amplified by the repetitive sounds of the jungle reverberating within its leafy confines. There was also a distinct sense of sukoon.

When these thoughts have been set, and all those numberless others, that come like flashes in the mind’s eye and are ruminated upon—can one evaluate the usefulness of a fruit?

A brief introduction to taxonomy and nomenclature

2009-03-05T10:12:00.003+05:30

[Talk at Field Study Course in Ornithology organized by

Rishi Valley Education Centre, Department of Bird Studies]

In an international conference, four bird-watchers were sitting in an open-air café, when a black coloured bird alighted nearby. Excitedly, the Russian exclaimed, “Vorona!” The Indian, not to be outdone pointed to the bird and said “Kowwá/Káki”. The meticulous German frowned, “Krähe” (Kreha). “No that’s a Crow,” boomed the American. This international conference, as you would have guessed by now, was before Carl Linné came onto the scene!

Carl von Linné was a Swedish botanist who tried to lay down guidelines to standardize nomenclature in 1751, through his Philosophica Botanica. He is considered the father of scientific nomenclature as his Systema Naturae, used rules, which he devised, for a system of standardized nomenclature that could be used throughout the world[1]. The 10^th edition of this work was published in 1758 and is today considered the beginning of a standardized zoological nomenclature for the world. He was so taken up with the binomen concept (comprising of two names) of nomenclature that he changed his own name to Carolus Linnaeus!

To bring order in the biological world, so that we understand it better, there are two basic steps. One is the process of classifying organisms; the other is naming them.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of classifying “organisms into categories or taxa (singular, taxon) and includes such procedures as identifying and naming.” Some examples of the several taxa used in biology are genus, species and subspecies. In ornithology, some of the common taxonomic characters on which species are separated are “morphological, such as those having to do with minor details of size, shape, and colour.” Other traits for separation could be related to habitat requirement or breeding requirements.

The Taxonomist brings order in the confusion of species by establishing the link between different taxa of birds by minutely studying and analyzing various factors like a bird’s anatomy, its morphology, its reproduction, its habitat and also its parasites! (Parasites are supposed to be host-specific and so closely related parasites would be found on closely related birds!) This relationship is established “on the basis of presumed ‘blood’ relationships. This is a ‘natural’ system because it relies on phylogeny—the evolution of related groups of organisms. Thus a taxonomic sequence of birds is arrived at.

Such a sequence was presented by Alexander Wetmore (1930), based on 40 characters selected by Gadow (1893), and was little changed till recently. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sibley, Ahlquist and Monroe “proposed a major reassessment of the relationships between birds, based on DNA-DNA hybridization studies,” and presented the world with a radically different species sequence, now popularly known as Sibley & Monroe’s checklist. The process of DNA-DNA hybridization used to arrive at this new classification is a technique beyond the scope of this paper. But suffice to say that it has not been accepted with open arms by ornithologists throughout the world. On the contrary! Two types of objections have been raised. The first, results from the horror of learning bird classification all over again, the second from doubts about the very technique used to arrive at the new sequence. This is something, which scientists will have to sort out over time. It has been done before and we have a witness of this transition in Mr Zafar Futehally here and his contemporaries!

Wetmore’s sequence “began with the Order Gaviiformes, Family Gaviidae (Divers), and ended with the Family Emberizidae of the Passeriformes. This up-ended and made topsy-turvy earlier sequences, of Hume through Oates & Blanford to Stuart Baker, which started off with the Corvidae (Crows, Magpies, Tree Pies, Jays, Nutcrackers and Choughs) of the Order Passeres and stopped with the Colymbidae (Divers) of the Pygopodes. This reversal was only because earlier classifications began with the most ‘advanced’ groups and ended with those considered highly ‘primitive’, but Wetmore and contemporaries felt it better to climb the phylogenetic tree, from the base upwards. The Perching Birds, with a highly evolved ‘voice-box’ enabling ‘songs’ of great melody and range, had to be on top of the tree, while the birds adapted to life on the sea and inland waters with croaking (‘frog-like’) sounds were best kept at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder.”

The system of giving technical names to the different taxa of birds (or other animals and plants) is known as nomenclature.

Nomenclature

Linnaeus devised a simple method of giving each taxon two names in languages that were extant during his time—Latin or Greek. The two names of each binomen comprise of a Genus and a Species. The first part of this binomial system is the Genus, which distinguishes a “group of related bird species or an isolated, distinctive species. It must be in the form of a noun” (Corvus is Latin for raven/crow), “must be unique in the zoological world, and is always capitalized.”

The second part of a binomen is the Species. It is uncapitalized and distinguishes the several species within a genus. “The specific name is commonly in the form of an adjective” (splendens is Latin for glittering or brilliant). A specific name makes sense only when it accompanies a generic name. It can be used in more than one genus eg., Cissa erythrorhyncha (Redbilled Blue Magpie) and Perdicula erythrorhyncha [Painted Bush Quail (Perdicula=small partridge)]. Here the specific name refers to “red-billed”.

Within a genus, no two species or subspecies may bear the same specific name. If unwittingly, a newly discovered bird is given an existing specific name under the same genus, the earlier specific name takes precedence over the latter, which will have to be placed in a unique species. In fact, a ready reference of the author of a species and the year in which that species was named and such record properly published are found in the complete scientific name of a bird. The complete scientific name of a bird (or for that matter any biological species) consists of 4 parts. The first two, comprising the genus and a species, have been discussed above. These are followed by the name of the author of the species and the year in which the name was first properly published. A house crow would be Corvus splendens Vieillot, 1817. A French ornithologist, Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot (1748-1831), described this bird in 1817. If the “author’s name” is “placed in parentheses after a specific name,” it “indicates that the current generic classification differs from the genus assigned by the original author. For example, the House Sparrow Passer domesticus (Linnaeus) 1758 was originally described in the genus Fringilla,” by Linnaeus, who had called it Fringilla domestica. It was later shifted to the genus Passer by an ornithologist called Brisson in 1760.

Systematists have further divided many species into subspecies, based mainly on geographical distribution. This has resulted in a trinomial system of naming birds, where the third word in the trinomen denotes the subspecies. eg., Passer domesticus indica Jardine & Selby 1835. The concept of subspecies has resulted in much hair-splitting and should never be used to describe a bird that is not in hand. I would like to emphasize here that for our work, describing a bird at its specific level is more than sufficient.

Every efficient system works in a framework of rules that help maintain order within the system. After Linnaeus’s pioneering work, many scientists of the 18^th century did not follow his rules and named birds of their own free will. This led to a great deal of confusion. In 1835, a British ornithologist, zoologist and palaeontologist Hugh E. Strickland conceived a code that was to bring uniformity to the process of international nomenclature. This code, fine tuned over the years, is now known as the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and is under the purview of a body called the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The fundamental goal of this Code—that of “ensuring stability and universality in scientific names…a basic necessity for communication between zoologists throughout the world and over time” is upheld by three basic rules. These are

1. Priority: “The principle of priority states simply that the earliest name applied properly to a taxon of animals is the correct scientific name, with the date of publication determined by the stated date on the publication or by other means if that information is not reliable. Priority now dates from 1 January 1758, the date fixed for the publication of the tenth edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae.” This holds good when a new species is described, or when two taxa are merged or even split.

2. Homonymy: “This principle states that a particular name can be used only once in zoological nomenclature. Hence a generic name or a family-group name can be used only once in the animal kingdom—it must be unique. Within a genus, a species-group name can be used only once.”

3. Preservation of well-established names: “This concept is concerned with preservation of stability and universality in zoological nomenclature. It operates by protecting well established names from being replaced by long-forgotten and hence unused senior synonyms.”

How do scientists choose the names of birds? They rely basically, on the following criteria. I’ll give brief examples.

1. Appearance: The colour, shape and, physical characteristics of birds are the commonest sources of bird names. Little Grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis. Tachybaptus means, “fast diver” and relates to behaviour and ruficollis means “red collared”, which relates to the appearance of the bird.

2. Eponym: Here a bird name commemorates a “real person or a mythical or a fictional character.” Otus alius is a new species of Scops Owl described from the Nicobar Islands, recently. “The name alius, which is Latin for ‘other’ (this being another Scops-owl from the Nicobar Islands), encapsulates the family name of Mr Humayun Abdulali, who first collected this species, and contributed a great deal to Indian ornithology, and in particular that of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.” (Bull. BOC 118: 141-153).

3. Native Name: Our very own Telugu word, “pitta”, used for any small bird, has been Latinized and is used as the genetic name of a colourful group of ground birds, as Pitta. The Indian Pitta’s scientific name Pitta brachyura translates as the ‘short tailed pitta.’

4. Toponym: These are based on geographical locations. The Large Pied Wagtail Motacilla maderaspatensis derives its specific name from the city of Madras, in Tamil Nadu. I hope there are no Tamil politicians here who might want to pass a resolution changing it to Motacilla chennaiensis in the next assembly session!

5. Other choices for bird nomenclature are derived from classification, habitat, behaviour [the woodpecker genus Dryocopus (Greek): drus=oak tree, kopos=cutter ie., “woodcutter”], food, voice [Bittern Botaurus stellaris: spotted bird which calls like a bull.], etc.

Practical aspects and field ornithology

Having said all this, we come to the moot point confronting us today. Which system of classification should we use? Do we stick with Ripley’s sequence in his Synopsis, or should we change over and use the brand new sequence arising from the DNA-DNA hybridization method? Many ornithologists believe that Ripley’s work is outdated. Not being a taxonomist, I cannot say in what way. But its sequence of serial numbers is the common thread that passes through our published bird literature since the publication of Sálim Ali and S.D. Ripley’s Handbook. It is what we are familiar and comfortable with. However, with the arrival of the new field-guide by Richard Grimmet and Tim and Carol Inskipp, Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (1998), our complacency regarding the Synopsis is sure to get a jolt. It follows the sequence of Sibley and Monroe.

My suggestion to you is to keep both works handy. For notes and papers to scientific journals, scrutinize which sequence the editors prefer and follow that. If there is a doubt, write them and inquire. But do not rush into the new system, yet, for it has not been accepted all over the world—especially since the leading ornithological organizations in India, the Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai and the Zoological Society of India with its headquarters in Calcutta, have not issued any statement to the contrary and continue to use Ripley’s Synopsis as the basis for their accepted sequence.

If in the final analysis, this is too much hot air, never mind! Go out and enjoy your bird-watching. In time, birds will lead you to what we have just discussed. Till then, HAPPY BIRDING!

References:

1. Ghorpadé, Kumar (1998): Letter from an insect-hunting ornithologist-14. Pitta # 83: 2-3.

2. Jobling, James A. (1991): A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

3. Inskipp, T., Lindsey, N. and Duckworth, W. (1996): An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region. Oriental Bird Club, Sandy.

4. Pettingill, Olin Sewall (1985): Ornithology in Laboratory and Field. 524Pps. Surjeet Publications, Delhi.

Acknowledgements:

I thank Mr Siraj A Taher for his comments on a draft of this paper.

[1] Actually Linnaeus and Petrus Artedi (a close friend and fellow student of medicine), started working together on this fresh method of documenting the natural world. Artedi dealt with fish, reptiles, amphibians and ‘Umbelliferae’ plants, and Linnaeus with birds, insects and plants in general. Unfortunately, Artedi drowned in an accident and Linnaeus was forced to continue with his name giving alone. (Bulletin of the Linnaean Society of London).

Falcons in focus

2009-03-05T09:41:00.004+05:30

Driving towards the “Red Lakes,” a set of twin small ponds in ICRISAT Campus (near Hyderabad), I glimpsed through the corner of my eye, a grey arrow streaking across the landscape, and disappearing into the crown of a Toddy Palm. We stopped on the bund, unfolding the spindly legs of our tripods, to scope onto a pair of Avocets that had been reported from here around Diwali. A small flock of waders huddled close to the fast-evaporating small pool. Ruffs stood about, some on the ground, sleeping with beaks under a wing, a few knee-deep in water, probing listlessly. No sign of avocets! Swinging my binoculars towards the crown of the Toddy palm, I spied the profile of a Red-headed Falcon. The tiercel would have seen our car long ago, as he shot through ether, abandoning a pouring landscape in his wake, to perch abruptly with a stone-hewn stillness in the palm. I could only see his bust over a frond. The hunters’ large all-seeing eye, brown, and yellow-rimmed, reflecting the very world it absorbs; the powerful curved beak; the chestnut hood and moustache. His white throat gleamed with bounced sunlight. He watched me then, in a casually alert way, boring with his eight times more powerful eyes through the binocs into mine. I could not hold his intense stare.

From his elevated, shadowed perch, he watched the flat landscape spread away all around, a quilt-work of undisturbed brown and ploughed red earth, of yellowing and green vegetation, of stagnant paddies and distant water. Small clusters of trees huddled here and there and bare branched thorny shrubs spoke an arid language. A bright sun shone from behind me in a wind scrubbed cloudless sky. The surrounding industrial hub was a noxious nuisance. If there were larks in the fields close by, they lay low, merging their browns with the furrowed earth. A roller rasped in the background, not threatened by the hunter, but nervous in his presence.

Suddenly he rose, pumping his pointed wings with a surge of purpose and power. In the blinking of an eye he exploded from the sun upon the Common Swallow that had been zipping and unzipping the sky in pursuit of midges. At the last moment the swallow tumbled out of the tiercel’s scorched trajectory, glimpsing the brilliance of the sun in his blazing eye as it slipped past the tiercel’s flung anchor shape, avoiding miraculously, the clutching talon. When I took the binoculars from my eye, pointing out the drama to CTH, we saw the falcon blurring towards her mate on closed wings. Miraculously the terrified swallow avoided the red-masked meteor, as both raptors overshot the fluttering little feathered heartbeat. The element of surprise was blown but the hunters pressed on. Again and again the swallow escaped by a whisker, buffeted about in the frenzied violence of the attack, the rushing roar of wind caught in a whirl of horizons, a panic-struck heart thudding frantically within its frail plumage. Predator and prey pouncing and prancing, locked in the tragic ballet of survival, spiraled to pinpoints in the domed firmament.

Fear, they say, gives strength. Mercurial reflexes, honed in the pursuit of flying insects, and the sagacity of an earth traveller migrating between distant shores, thrummed in the genes of the lucky swallow. In a moment, plummeting on curved wings, the falcon lit on the palm frond from where the tiercel had launched his attack and he followed on her heels. The world swung back on its axis and surrounding birdcalls reached my ear again. CTH pointed towards a woodpecker. In that moment of distraction, the falcon slipped away. The tiercel continued to watch a warming world as swallows now hunted their winged prey between him and the sun.

Pittie, A. 2004. Falcons in flight. Newsletter for Ornithologists 1 (1&2): 30–31.

Can we afford to lose the Great Indian Bustard?

2006-06-11T19:21:00.001+05:30

“Bashtad, saar!” Allahbaksh’s downplayed guttural words brought me to an abrupt halt. Taking the telescope from him I pointed it in the direction of his gaze and after a few anxious moments, of squinting, through the eyepiece and twiddling the focusing ring, managed to crystallize a sharp image. An adult male Great Indian Bustard stood under a Morinda tree. Stretching to his full height he plucked ripe, black fruits from the lowest branches and swallowed them. A setting sun lit the bird in stark relief and through the scope I could see him very clearly. He walked around the tree as he fed. Once he stood for a couple of minutes behind the bole of the tree and peered around as though aware of our presence, waiting for us to move on. When we stood our ground in silence, he must have realized that we meant no harm and commenced to feed. Suddenly I realized there was a fox scampering around playfully beyond the bustard! It spun like a top after its tail, breaking away to dart hither and thither in meaningless abandon. Fun and frolic are not the privilege of man alone. Momentarily distracted by the bustard I looked away. When my eye rotated within the scope toward the fox, it had vanished. Meanwhile, the bustard, either sated or having consumed all fruit within reach, walked away leisurely towards the northeast boundary of the Rollapadu Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary.

This area was a ‘humped’ part of the gentle undulations of a flat-as-a-tabletop landscape and was a traditional displaying spot for male bustards. With inflated gular pouch and erected neck feathers the bird cocked his tail all the way over his back and began to strut in circles. I didn’t see any females but I was far away. He may have spied one or two on the other side of the hump and begun his act in silence. He did not utter the booming call that carries for half a kilometer. We watched him till the light began to fade and a red-headed merlin hawked swallows successfully in the gloaming. In two days we counted 3 bustards. One male and two females.

In the 1980s, when bustards were first sighted here and a sanctuary for them proclaimed, 35-40 birds had been sighted within the span of a few hours. Rollapadu was considered the best bustard habitat on the Deccan Plateau. More than half a dozen males could be seen displaying, from one vantage point! For a decade or so the young sanctuary was protected, managed and studied with zeal. Bustards were seen in good numbers. They bred and their nests faced the vagaries of success and failure. Above all, individual numbers did not decrease.

Total protection of the habitat also boosted populations of other denizens. Blackbuck increased by leaps and bounds. There are about 400-450 now. Wolves too increased, as must have other mammals like foxes and black-naped hare. In the resulting dynamic tussel for food and territory, subtle changes began to erode the ground from under the bustard’s feet. Species become extinct individual by individual. There are many theories about the causes of this debacle. Too many people and the resulting agricultural boom, too many blackbuck (as a result of total protection), widespread grazing within the sanctuary resulting in the increase of unpalatable vegetation for grasshoppers, the bustard’s prey and, clandestine poaching being some. Too, a slackening of guard by those entrusted with the care of this irreplaceable natural heritage and national treasure—for it is not found anywhere else in the world. They seem to have forgotten that protection is only the first step towards ensuring the survival of a threatened species, that active management is its logical corollary.

This is the situation across the entire reducing range of the great Indian bustard. Hanging by the thread of human apathy and negligence is a member of a family that evolved 40-50 million years ago, perfecting a way of life on the short grass plains and arid regions of

India

. From its stronghold in the Thar (where its populations have halved since the 80’s), across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra and Karnataka the bustard is slowly but surely losing out. It has already vanished (exterminated by us) from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. The bustard is not ready to die yet. We are choking it to death.

The disappearance of any species from the face of the Earth is an irreversible tragedy whose finality cannot be emphasized enough. It’s a physical loss for the natural world, a broken link in the proverbial chain of life. Increasingly, almost singularly these days, extinction is a direct result of human activity. By perpetrating these tragic and callous acts we walk a one-way path that leads to the edge of a precipice from which there is no turning back.

Have you ever wondered what humanity is losing, beyond the physical impoverishment that the loss of a species brings to an ecosystem?

To me, the great Indian bustard is as important a part of this planet as is a tiger or a tiger beetle, a danaid eggfly or an earthworm churning soil, breathing life into mud. The extinction of each species diminishes me and negates my intelligence, as it does yours. The bustard stands for the well being of our grasslands and the myriads of life forms comprising that ecosystem. It strides through a landscape that gave character to my nation and my brotherhood. Gujar, Maldhari, Bishnoi.

In accepting its presence and rejoicing in its freedom, I can stand erect and be a part of the land that has sculpted the genes of our agrarian lifestyle. The bustard struts in a wilderness that cannot be found within the insular and limited activities of human societies. It beckons the one human character that soars above them—our unassailable spirit. We cannot survive the 22^nd century successfully within the confines of our achievements alone. Our spirit yearns to walk with the bustard and to thrill at the jumping grasshoppers underfoot. To feel the wind’s caress as it bends a sea of grass heads till the eye can see. To ruminate at the ebb of day under a gently burning, purpling, blackening sky. For deep down we realize that the spirit of the land peoples our breath and ultimately strengthens our work. Its aroma is the only constant in our temporal world. It will not be denied.

Published in: Hornbill. 2001 (April-June): 24-26.

A tryst with Jerdon's Courser

2006-06-11T18:19:00.001+05:30

Aitanna would hear none of it. He had to attend the wedding in the neighbouring village and the Kalivi Kodi would simply have to wait for another night. A hired truck waited ominously, ready to carry the wedding party and Aitanna away from Reddipalle. After some more cajoling, he said that the batteries of his miner’s lamp were discharged. We had four-celled torches. He couldn’t find the rattle that distracted the bird. We were willing to take that risk. As his resolve broke, I asked Richard to step out of the car and told Aitanna that he’d come all the way from England to see this bird. Would he have to return disappointed? Aitanna’s self-esteem would not allow that to happen.

Aitanna led us into the pitch-black night, warning us not to switch on lights or talk. Our pavement-friendly feet had problems negotiating invisible stones and sudden depressions. But the heart pounded with anticipation and eyes strained after the dancing torch beam that Aitanna flicked haphazardly here and there. Two hours of this and we were trudging hopelessly. Then it happened. The needle glinted in the haystack! Cursorius bitorquatus crouched on its long legs and stared at us with its abnormally large nocturnal eye. All our torches found their target. With bated breath we crept forward, afraid to blink lest the apparition vanish. A brilliant white supercilium separated its scalp from the face and neck and a double lined necklace adorned its chest. We stood transfixed. As Richard reached for his sketchpad, Aitanna, the conscientious forest guard, motioned us away. It took us a while to get back our breath, as we sat in silence, lost in thought. We had just seen the rarest bird in

India

, on one of the oldest geological real estate in the country, indeed the world. As I realized that this terrestrial endemic had survived here for more years than our imagination allows us to register—and now faced an uncertain future—time stood still.

First published in 1999 as: A tryst with Jerdon’s Courser Cursorius bitorquatus (Blyth). Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 39(6): 83-84.

Late night thoughts on listening to Rachmanninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto

2006-06-03T22:36:00.002+05:30

Softer than air it starts. Stirring emotion ever so gently, leading me on into a labrynth of ecstasy. Some might opine that music reveals the heart of the composer or poetry the poet. That may be. It mayn't too. I believe that music, when it touches me, reveals not its maker but myself to myself. It reflects my traumas and on recognising them I am comforted into a peace which may be temporary, but it is fulfilling - like biting into a juicy jamun or inhaling the arresting aroma of a night jasmine.

I believe that true art, great art, is wrenched from the depth of suffering. Imagine, when you look deep enough inside you, pushing aside all the webs of acquired emotional detritus, there abides a terrible beauty at your core waiting to be rescued. Alas, most of us are dwarfs who are so bedazzled by its momentary sheen that we allow our useless accumulations to fall back, happy to feed upon that fleeting instance of bliss.

The burden of mortality becomes bearable under the light of such brilliant glimpses of introspection.