Be it the peafowls that set the dusk with their long and hallow calls called screams, or the chirps of the settling birds as the sun sets, or the owls that colour the night with their “bu booop” hoots, or the songs of the songbirds that break the dawn, birds always set the tone each day.
Even when it is raining cats and dogs outside, one can still hear the faint cooing of pigeons or the gruff cawing of crows, the most social of all birds, and it is impossible to find a surrounding without a winged visitor as one can invariably spot a bird or two perched on a branch, or even electric wires for that matter.
Not many are lucky enough to know or even to have seen the birds that live in our locality; around the house; in our own backyard and in the lakes and in this fast growing world, it is a pity that people do not even know the local name of the strikingly coloured sunbirds and munias.
Well, in a fast rushing world, where people lack vitamin- D and are advised by the doctors to “walk in the sunlight”, it has become impossible to make people ‘bird watch’. The term ‘bird watch’ has itself become an art of the rich as many feel that costly equipment is involved in bird watching.
Where can this dilemma be broken? ‘Campus bird watching’ could well be the key to involve more people into bird watching and with proper field guidance and data sheets, such activities might well create avid bird watchers in the future.
Informing that birds help in understanding the changes in environment, R.K. Niveditha, Program Fellow at the Natural Ornithology Databank Cell in Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, says, “Birds are affected by even the smallest of changes in the environment and they are key indicators in understanding factors like environment degradation”.
“In order to identify such changes, one has to watch birds and their activities closely and when it starts in one’s campus, it will give information about environment degradation inside the campus,” she adds.
In addition to the scientific indications, Niveditha, who is an avid birdwatcher herself, says that bird watching is a good habit that instils conservation at young age and also soothes the mind of the watcher.
Watching birds help us in many ways say students who have been involved in similar campus bird watching programmes. “It increased my interest in not only birds, but the environment on the whole. We are able to learn about the behaviour of individual birds,” says M. Srisowmiya, a student of Post Graduation Zoology in the Bharathiyar Universtiy, who recently did a bird census in the university campus.
S. Prasath, a journalist form the city who has been involved in bird watching for many years claims that campus birding would help know wildlife that have adapted to city life. “If one watches birds carefully, we can find out the anthropogenic factors that are affecting them and thereby give solutions,” he adds.
Even when it is raining cats and dogs outside, one can still hear the faint cooing of pigeons or the gruff cawing of crows, the most social of all birds, and it is impossible to find a surrounding without a winged visitor as one can invariably spot a bird or two perched on a branch, or even electric wires for that matter.
Not many are lucky enough to know or even to have seen the birds that live in our locality; around the house; in our own backyard and in the lakes and in this fast growing world, it is a pity that people do not even know the local name of the strikingly coloured sunbirds and munias.
Well, in a fast rushing world, where people lack vitamin- D and are advised by the doctors to “walk in the sunlight”, it has become impossible to make people ‘bird watch’. The term ‘bird watch’ has itself become an art of the rich as many feel that costly equipment is involved in bird watching.
Where can this dilemma be broken? ‘Campus bird watching’ could well be the key to involve more people into bird watching and with proper field guidance and data sheets, such activities might well create avid bird watchers in the future.
Informing that birds help in understanding the changes in environment, R.K. Niveditha, Program Fellow at the Natural Ornithology Databank Cell in Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, says, “Birds are affected by even the smallest of changes in the environment and they are key indicators in understanding factors like environment degradation”.
“In order to identify such changes, one has to watch birds and their activities closely and when it starts in one’s campus, it will give information about environment degradation inside the campus,” she adds.
In addition to the scientific indications, Niveditha, who is an avid birdwatcher herself, says that bird watching is a good habit that instils conservation at young age and also soothes the mind of the watcher.
Watching birds help us in many ways say students who have been involved in similar campus bird watching programmes. “It increased my interest in not only birds, but the environment on the whole. We are able to learn about the behaviour of individual birds,” says M. Srisowmiya, a student of Post Graduation Zoology in the Bharathiyar Universtiy, who recently did a bird census in the university campus.
S. Prasath, a journalist form the city who has been involved in bird watching for many years claims that campus birding would help know wildlife that have adapted to city life. “If one watches birds carefully, we can find out the anthropogenic factors that are affecting them and thereby give solutions,” he adds.