Down in jungleland: The story of a long flight

Birders themselves thought of themselves as a rare (and in danger of going extinct) species. Then the internet came along and that suddenly changed everything. Now birders could so easily “network”, get in touch with other eccentrics like themselves, near and far, share information and pictures and fight each other over species’ identifications. It became easier to organise birding trips and outings. And so today we have “Big Bird Day” and “Bird Festivals” and “Bird Clubs” and whatnot! Soon, it may even become a designer pastime like golf.

There are more than 1,300 species of birds in India — and no less a diversity of birders. Some like making and keeping copious lists and field notes, and ensure that on every trip, the list is longer than the previous one. Lists and note-taking can be important if they’re kept consistently over a period of time as they become indicators of trends — whether bird populations and diversity is going up or down (though often this can be predicted by the state of the habitat). But to be obsessive about it, to my mind, sort of kills the fun: it’s like when you tell a story to schoolchildren and they immediately whip out their notebooks to take notes instead of listening to the tale.

Then, there are those who get very excited about “lifers”. That’s a bird they’ve never seen before and are now seeing for the first time in their life. Well, at some point of time, even a crow would have been a “lifer”, but I guess, it is exciting to see something new, especially if it’s not particularly common. A true “lifer”, I think, should be a bird you see only once in your entire life.

In the field, birders behave very differently. Some will glance at a tiny brown bird 500 m away with one half-opened eye and tell you what it is, girl or boy, how old, what it probably ate for breakfast, whether it is in love or available, how many children it has, what its plans for the day are, what hobbies it has etc. Before you dismiss this derisively, you must know that there’s something called “jizz” which experienced birders feel in their bones: it’s sort of the bits and pieces of fleeting identity DNA — behaviour, features, manner of flight etc, which come together and enable an experienced birder to make the ID, simply because he has observed the bird in great detail before and virtually infused these features into his or her mindset. On the other hand, of course, there’s Salim Ali’s caution: you can have a small brown bird (warblers are the usual culprits) in your hand and not be able to positively identify it short of doing a DNA analysis.

On seeing a strange bird, say a duck with a refulgent head, some birders like to think straightaway that it’s the Pink Headed Duck (it’s extinct), others (like me) start off with the Common Pochard and work our way up to something more glamorous like the Red-crested Pochard. It is, of course, over identification that most birders fall out with each other, because here, ego, experience and reputation are at stake. Who is right and who is wrong? But, in the end, does that really make any difference? You are free to believe what you want and your rival can believe what he or she wants and both can be happy. If you thought the bird was a bee-eater and your rival thought it was a kingfisher, so be it! (Which probably means you’re both pretty hopeless.)

To a great extent, identification has become much easier because of the large number of illustrated bird guides now available, many of which are specific to particular regions or states of the country. In the “old” days, there was really only Salim Ali’s seminal Book of Indian Birds (and later, the monumental Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan) to go by, which, to my mind, still provide the best combination of science writing, literature and entertainment. Now you can even download books on your smartphone and take them along with you. Bird photography too has really come into its own: I’ve recently flipped through a copy of Valmik Thapar’s Winged Fire which has some of the most stunning action shots of birds I’ve seen anywhere.

Finally, to a question asked often: “What’s your favourite bird?” Well, as I live in the city, it’s a toss up between the shikra and the jungle babblers. The former because it’s a fierce, high-spirited little hawk that takes no prisoners; the latter because they’re hammering at the window right now, making rude noises and demanding to see what I’ve written about them because they take no prisoners either (and actually are big softies).

Ranjit Lal is an author, environmentalist and birdwatcher