WINGED FIRE: A CELEBRATION OF INDIAN BIRDS
Author: Valmik Thapar
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Pages: 510
Price: Rs 2,995
Birds, as a group, have always been attractive to humans. Birds have brilliant plumage, musical calls, elaborate courtship displays and intriguing behaviour. Being present everywhere around us, they are also easy to see compared to other animal groups such as mammals and reptiles. Birds have, thus, found their way into poetry, prose, mythology and song to a degree that no other taxon has. Globally, a widespread interest in birds among people is manifested in the large number of books, popular newsletters, websites and even public events that are devoted to birds. According to scientists, birds are also good ecological indicators of our wetlands, forests and grasslands - a fact that is increasingly being used to monitor climate change, pollution and habitat degradation.
India is fortunate to be among the 17 mega-diverse countries of the world that harbour an incredibly rich avian fauna. The high levels of diversity have been attributed to the range of habitats present in the country, which range from dry deserts to wet rainforests and from riverine grasslands to the tallest mountain peaks. India's location in the tropics and at the confluence of three biogeographic realms - represented by Eurasia, Africa and Southeast Asia - is no less important.
Winged Fire is an expansive anthology of essays and rare photographs that is a monumental ode to India's bird diversity. The author and editor, Valmik Thapar, is an accomplished naturalist who had, till recently, restricted his work to tigers and their natural history. In this volume, he has turned his attention to Indian birds, with very good effect. The essays span medieval and modern times. The earliest essays date back to Mughal times - such as those written by Babur, Ab'ul Fazl and Humayun. From the 19th and early 20th centuries, naturalists such as A O Hume, Kenneth Anderson, Salim Ali, Raol Shri Dharmakumarsinhji and Lavkumar Khachar are accommodated. More recent authors include M Krishnan, Khushwant Singh, Rishad Naoroji, Ruskin Bond and Peter Smetacek. The information-rich introduction by Ramki Sreenivasan is an interesting travelogue-cum-bird diary that takes the reader through all the major ecosystems in the country, many of which are still little understood or known scientifically. Some of the rarest birds in the country are described in this section.
Although the essays are mostly written in the form of travelogues and natural history accounts, they reflect important ecological roles that are played by bird species in different habitats: as predators, scavengers, pollinators, seed dispersers and ecosystem architects.
The book is truly a photographic extravaganza. Photographs of bird species rarely seen in print have been published in this volume - such as the pied harrier, rufous-necked hornbill, brown-winged kingfisher, blood pheasant, mangrove pitta and Sri Lanka frogmouth. In particular, the book provides a feast of species from northeastern India that have possibly never been photographed: the Ward's trogon, Gould's shortwing, red-tailed minla, spot-breasted parrotbill and spotted wren-babbler. The book also has a plethora of rare behavioural shots: a pair of great slaty woodpeckers in their nest, a Bonelli's eagle flying off with a monitor lizard, a Narcondam hornbill feeding on fruit, a coppersmith barbet and common myna squabbling over ripe figs, a crested serpent-eagle attacking a snake, a shikra demolishing a squirrel and aggression between two male knob-billed ducks. Such pictures provide rare insights into the lives of birds, much of which remains largely undocumented to this day.
The only shortcoming of Winged Fire is that it does not adequately reflect the resurgence of ornithological research in the country during the past two decades. An increasing number of biologists are beginning to delve systematically into ecology, evolution and behaviour through themes such as bird-mediated seed dispersal, bird adaptation and extinction, mixed species flock behaviour and nesting choices. In particular, scientists are beginning to unravel patterns of local species extinctions in managed and human-dominated landscapes such as plantations and extracted forests. Although ornithologists such as Shankar Raman, Raman Kumar, Abdul J Urfi, Ravi Sankaran and K S Gopi Sundar write scientifically, they are no strangers to popular writing.
The author, too, has published extensively on birds of anthropogenic landscapes such as the Sariska tiger reserve and sub-Himalayan sal forests. Along with natural history, such quantitative knowledge generated by scientists can be critical to environmental policy making. Popular pieces by such scientists would, thus, have added value to the book. Also, an index was needed in an anthology of this size so that ecological details on various species could easily be referenced by readers.
Produced impeccably, Winged Fire is a wonderful tribute to the treasure of bird diversity that India possesses. Glimpses of bird behaviour and ecology highlight how little we actually know about our co-inhabitants on this planet. It inspires the reader to protect all the varied ecosystems that birds inhabit and of which they are essential elements. Winged Fire creates an urgent awareness of the necessity of protecting our remaining wilderness from the adverse impacts of the ever-expanding human influence. Nature is resilient: all it needs is some sensitivity and space to survive.
The reviewer is an ecologist with the Centre for Ecology, Development and Research, Dehradun, and works in the area of conservation biology and wildlife policy
