Book on Common Indian Birds

Since it is a Thursday and we shall have a Twittering Thursday post up on the blog later this evening, it was a nice coincidence to come across a book on birds to keep with the bird theme of Twittering Thursday.

Via The Hindu

Sukumar Arumugam, who writes under the penname Chinna Sathan (his childhood pet-name), is unassuming and a mild mannered. He has documented the nesting behaviour of 51 species of common Indian birds.

With co-author Bal Pandi, a temporary birdwatcher at Koonthakulam bird sanctuary near Tirunelveli, Sukumar spent five years researching minute aspects of nesting and bird behaviour in Koonthakulam, Sathyamangalam and Sulur. The book has 300 original photographs and 50 sketches by known naturalists like T. R. A. Arunthavaselvan, Sivaprasadh and M. S. Mayilvahanan. Apart from studying nesting, the book details riveting facts about why perching birds stand on anthills, what happens to broken egg shells and notes on various topics like sanitary habits of birds and predators of nests.

Without an (International Standard Book Number) ISBN and a renowned publisher, Sukumar has only the State to fall back on. The Tamil Nadu government usually procures a 1,000 copies of his books for government libraries. Sale is usually done through friends and associations. This time he hopes to sell copies online, after getting an ISBN. The author, who feels school children ought to read the book, hasn’t contacted any bookshops as they take “40 per cent profit”, making the book unaffordabale. Apart from conservation activities, Sukumar and Hari want to create a corpus for Bal Pandi to get a monthly income, with the proceeds from the book. Pandi, who nurses orphan birds and has received many conservation awards, finds a well-deserved note in the book. The clinical detail in which the author describes Pandi’s techniques for healing birds is remarkably enlightening.

The book is priced at Rs. 650. For details visit http://nestingbook.webs.com/.

Read the entire article here.

Image Source : Subharghya Das