Coimbatore : With colourful pictures and detailed descriptions, 'Birds of Tamil Nadu,' a birding field guide released by the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy in Coimbatore recently, could well prove to be very helpful for birding enthusiasts in the State, as it carries more species and accurate data, which was lacking in previous editions.
Coimbatore : With colourful pictures and detailed descriptions, 'Birds of Tamil Nadu,' a birding field guide released by the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy in Coimbatore recently, could well prove to be very helpful for birding enthusiasts in the State, as it carries more species and accurate data, which was lacking in previous editions.
Co-authored by bird enthusiast P B Balaji, noted Ornithologist and Deputy Director of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) S Balachandran and Chief Conservator of Forests V Thirunavukkarasu, the 246-page guide carries notes on 512 species of birds found in Tamil Nadu, along with coloured photographs taken by Balaji and other photgraphers.
"This is a joint venture by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and BNHS, who initially wanted to create a field guide for foresters to carry out census programmes. But the book also turned out to be a field guide for bird watching which can be of great use to bird watchers and the general public, as the contents are given in simple language," said P B Balaji.
Claiming that there was no such book or field guide which comprehensively covers all the species of birds within the limits of Tamil Nadu, Balaji said that even books like 'Tamilnattu Paravaigal' by K Ratnam covered only about 300-odd species of birds with poor illustrations.
"There was another book called 'Then Inthiya Paravaigal' brought by BNHS. However, the book had many language flaws and due to the shortcomings, there has always been a need for a photographic field guide with a good description of birds in Tamil," opined Balaji.
This is when Balachandran received a request from CCF Thirunavukarasu to bring out a bird field guide for the forest guard trainees and subsequently Balaji who has undergone a course in Ornithology in BNHS and has experience in working for the book on the birds in Coimbatore, decided to compile the book.
"We started the work for the book on August 10 this year and the book was released on September 27. Even though the book was prepared in a short span of time, the photographs used in the book were collected over several years of field visits to sanctuaries and birding hotspots throughout India," stated Balaji to Simplicity.
Claiming that sourcing images for the book was one of the major challenges while bringing out the book, Balaji stated that photographs of some rare birds were used with an open license arrangement from the internet. "Secondly, using acceptable names and descriptions in Tamil was another monumental task. Despite having a good population of good bird watchers and enthusiasts in Tamil Nadu, we still have not started working on standardising the names of birds in Tamil. Again, previous work in this area are seriously deficient and therefore we had to start from scratch in this area," pointed out Balaji.
In order to get a copy of the book, people can pay and receive via PayTM or the bank account. The book will be shipped at a total cost of Rs. 300.
Balaji can be contacted @ +91 9942222141.