The birds and the bees

At one point, in this book under review, the authors note: “Once we located a nest in a tree about 5 feet above ground level among a tree colony of Koonthakulam lake after the water had dried up in the lake.

When we spied them, chicks withdrew their heads into the nest hole. But I could hear the chatter of the bird beaks.” Descriptions such as this abound in Diary on the nesting behaviour of Indian birds.

The book addresses a long-felt lacuna in Indian ornithology; the last studies were done at the beginning of the 20th century.
   
Ornithologist Salim Ali once stressed on the need to study the nesting behaviour of common birds of India. The diary is adorned with 300 photographs, 50 sketches and unique information on the nesting behaviour of 50 birds gathered from observations in the field for four years. It is a work of bird lovers with somewhat different backgrounds. Chinna Sathan has been a government official for most of his working life. His colleague Bal Pindi is an official bird watcher of Koonthakulam sanctuary in Tamil Nadu. The diary, the fruit of a collaboration between the two, brings alive the lifecycle of birds. There are details about mating, hatching of eggs and staving off predators. But it is the narrative style that brings these details alive.

Sample this: “Once Bal Pindi noticed a mother kingfisher persuade a juvenile to get into a nest. But the baby kept its distance. The mother then fetched a twig and drew in her child like many mothers do to persuade their children—with a chocolate.”

K Devarajan is a lawyer and a bird lover

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