Birds names need not be Greek or Latin anymore as city-based radiologist Dr Satish Pande comes up with the meanings of scientific names of 1200 common and rare species of birds in his book Latin Names of Indian Birds: Explained If he is not writing books,submitting research papers on some of the endangered birds or traveling to the Andaman and Nicobar islands to locate newer species,then he is involved in training people from all walks of life about birds,their feeding habits,behaviour,bird flight,migration and other ecological and conservation aspects. With over ten books to his credit including Birds of Western Ghats Kokan and Malabar and so on,Dr Satish Pandes latest book- Latin Names of Indian Birds: Explained ,that was launched recently,is yet another feather in his cap. For Pande,his first impressions of bird life were from the Sainik School that he studied in at Satara. It was located amidst an agricultural cropland which is rich in bird life,says Pande who was exposed to hundreds of books on birds and the environment and hence it was only natural that the radiologist pursued his passion- Ornithology. Pandes avid interest in the subject and his medical background motivated him to compile bird names. For more than four years this enthusiast pored over Greek,Latin and English dictionaries trying to decipher the exact meaning of the bird names. Many people stay away from journals because of the technical jargons. Now for instance,who would have thought that Mrs Humes Pheasant a bird with a robe like tail got its name from the wife of British ornithologist Allan Hume who was also the founder of the Indian National Congress, says Pande. Trustee of the Ela foundation,Pande says that information has been compiled about each bird,conservation and endemic status. User friendly tips have also been provided in the 544-pager on various birds. "We first identified the exact number of Indian bird species in the present scenario. After a thorough search of published ornithological literature and checklists,what was important was to find the existing similar dictionaries for birds of other countries for comparative data, says Pande. Then the next step was to procure and study the Latin and greek dictionaries since most of the scientific bird names are in these languages and the fourth step was to get relevant references from other 13 languages. Only then this kind of linguistic pursuit can end up in a meaningful output,says the wildlife enthusiast adding, The challenges were plenty- it was very difficult to obtain published literature as most of the information is now digitised. I had to visit several libraries,contact institutes and universities for baseline ornithological data and devoted two hours to writing the book every day.
