Ali, Salim [Sálim]; J. C. Daniel;
The Book of Indian Birds, 13th ed.
Oxford University Press, 2002, 326 pages
ISBN 0195665236, 9780195665239
topics: | birds | india
This is the all-time birding classic for indian birdwatchers. First published in 1941, it was the first birding book meant for the average Indian lay person. All earlier books had been published in London, and were largely meant for British audiences and were mostly unavailable in India. This volume achieved mass sales with its low-cost and excellent descriptions, although the artwork, as Ali concedes in his introduction to the 1941 edition, were sometimes "downright bad". My brother gifted me a copy of the 11th edition in 1993, and i have used the book simply to study the birds that come to my lawn - of which there are some 50-60 species (I live in a rich eco-sphere). Since 2000 or so, I have been taking bird-watching more seriously, going further afield in search of birds and maintaining a blog. I have bought a number of other books, including the Ali/Ripley 10 volume Handbook, but this book remains useful for its pithy summaries.
Salim Ali made a number of innovations in the text, such as the section
titled "How to recognize birds in the field" - this was divided into
categories like "Birds with Prominent Tails / Bills / Crests", "birds with
bright colours", etc. Another innovation was on specifying size. Quoting
from the 1941 edition:
To me it seems that describing the Spotted Dove, for example, as
"Between the Myna and the Pigeon" gives a far clearer idea of the size
than "Length 12 inches."
This scale used several birds familiar to the average indian layman:
A Sparrow : 6" G. Crow : 17"
B Quail : 7-8" H. Kite: 24"
C Bulbul : 8" I. Duck: 24"
D Myna : 9" J. Village hen: 18-30"
E. Pigeon : 13" K. Vulture 36"
F. Partridge: 13"
To me, this scale makes immense sense to anyone familiar with the Indian
landscape (not birds in particular).
The book has undergone many changes in the intervening years, but these
features remain useful, and continue. We realize that being the size of a
"myna" may be less helpful for an international birdwatcher, but for an
Indian it seems obvious.
This is the sense in which it is a book meant for the Indian audience, whom
it has served very well indeed over many decades. To my mind, this still
remains the best book to buy for the inexperienced amateur birdwatcher.
True, it does not cover all 1300 species you are likely to see in India,
but it was more than a decade after my first interest in birds that I ran
into a species that wasn't in the book...
The twelfth edition was revamped completely on the occasion of Salim Ali's birth centenary, and the old illustrations were replaced by excellent artwork by Goa-based nature artist (and original Salim Ali collaborator) Carl D'Silva. These have been retained in the 13th edition, so the field guide part of the book is quite useful. But what makes the book worthwhile for the beginning birdwatcher are Salim Ali's colourful descriptions of their habits and behaviour. bio: Carl D'Silva grew up in Goa and joined the Bombay Natural History Society and started painting birds at the age of 17. more at http://www.goa-world.com/goa/magazine/bird.htm
The book has 64 plates, with the drawings of 538 species, which are also described in some detail over 300 pages. This list does not cover many of the rarer species - South Asia sees about 1300 species, and [Grimmett etal] list 1295 on 155 plates. Grimmett is therefore more comprehensive, even listing some 95 more than the Handbook, which had 1200 species (new sightings and species re-classification accounting for the increase). The list of birds is not meant to be comprehensive, but it does cover almost everything the beginning bird-watcher may encounter. It includes a section with a few paragraphs descriing the birds, written in Salim Ali's inimitable and colourful style, and this makes it much more useful than a set of sketches with minimal descriptions. Much of the beauty and interest in birds lies in their behaviour, and this I feel is much better served, at least for the majority of the birds an average birdwatcher is likely to encounter, in the Ali edition than in Grimmett or other more comprehensive but sparser volumes. The one thing missing in this volume, compared to Grimmett or Grewal, are maps showing where the bird is most likely to be found.
From this edition, the taxonomy of the birds shifted to the newer DNA based system, originally proposed by Sibley and Monroe. This change was accompanied by an international list of standardized English names, and at the 1990 International Ornothological Congress, the common names were chosen not from the Ali/Ripley handbook but another competing list. There were no Indians in the IOC's Oriental Birds committee. Daniel notes that this was surely "uncalled for"... The congress adopted Sibley/Munro:1988 (the Sibley-Monroe checklist) for the scientific names, but the "English name"s were also adopted from this checklist which has thrown out many well known names which were being used in the Ripley/Ali Handbook 1968-1974, and also those that were used in Ali/Daniel for ten editions. Unfortunately these have now been internationally adopted, and now BNHS has reluctantly followed suit. JC Daniel of the Bombay Natural History Society, writes in the preface: The classification of birds has been undergoing periodic upheavals since the time of the first edition of "Fauna of British India" (1889-1890) by Oates and Blanford. The publication of the "Synopsis" by S. Dillon Ripley (1961) and the "Handbook" by Ali/Ripley (1968-1974) gave a certain amount of stability [until DNA based studies of Sibley/Munro:1988]. The problem [of common names] was compounded by the International Ornithological Congress of 1990 taking the common English names of birds given in Sibley/Munro as a basis for discusssion for standardization of common English names for birds. This is unfortunate as many of the common English names used in the subcontinent for over a century have been summarily thrown overboard. One can feel a sense of frustration behind these words -- Indian birders were possibly under-represented at these Congresses, and now these other names have become the international standard. Some changes resulted from species that were merged, e.g. the "Indian Great Horned Owl" has become the "Eurasian Eagle-Owl" to reflect the convergent speciation of an internationally distributed species. However, renaming birds endemic to S Asia without reflecting the established S Asian tradition (reflected in the Ali/Ripley handbook) seemed quite un-called for (possibly reflecting a ego battle among Western ornithologists), as in the "Brahminy mynah" becoming "Brahminy Starling". Indeed, the group "starling" may be better called mynah because of the preponderance in the genus. At the same time, the "warbler" nature of the "Streaked Fantail Warbler", was now discarded; it is called "Zitting Cisticola". While in many cases, there are genuine reasons for merging the species based on a wider international record, some of the Indian names, could have also been retained.
Habits: Fond of lawns, gardens and groves in and around villages and towns. Walks and runs with a quail-like but waddling gait, probing into the soil for food with bill partly open like forceps. When digging, the crest is folded back and projects in a point behind the head. It is flicked open and erected fanwise from time to time. Call: A soft, musical, penetrating, hoo-po or hoo-po-po repeated in runs, often intermittently for 10 minutes at a stretch. Diet: Insects, grubs, and pupae, hence beneficial to agriculture. Nest: natural tree-hollow or hole in wall or ceiling of building, untidily lined with straw, rags and rubbish. Eggs - 5 or 6, white. Nest is notorious for its filthiness and stench. Picture shows Hoopoe with both crest laid back (98% of the time), and also crest erected. Contrast with Grimmett etal's deadpan description: Summer visitor to far north; resident and winter visitor to much of rest of subcontinent. Rufous-orange or orange-buff, with black-and-white wings and tail and black-tipped fan like crest. Open country, cultivation and villages. Grimmett shows only with crest erect. Flight picture in Grimmett is better Colourful language - on the white-breasted waterhen: As the bird circumspectly stalks along the ground or skulks its way through the hedges and undergrowth its stumpy tail, carried erect, is constantly twitched up displaying prominently the red underneath. (1941 edn)
Dr. Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali, (November 12, 1896 - July 27, 1987) was the pre-eminent ornithologist of India. http://www.birding.in/dr_salim_ali.htm Known as the "Birdman of India", Dr. Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali's (or Dr. Salim Ali, as he is better known) name was synonymous with birds. To his many associates however, he was much more than that. A great visionary, he made birds a serious pursuit when it used to be a mere fun for the most. Orphaned at a very young age, Salim Ali was brought up by his maternal uncle, Amiruddin Tyabji. Uncle Amiruddin was a keen Shikari (Hunter) and nature-lover. Under his guidance young Salim learnt his first lessons in Shikar and became aware of the nature around him. When Salim was ten years old, his uncle presented him with an air-gun. One day young Salim shot a sparrow which had a yellow streak below its neck. His uncle could not explain more about this sparrow and asked him to go to Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Mumbai. He went to BNHS, but, was apprehensive about going in and talking to some strange English man (Honorary Secretary, W. S. Millard). He somehow found the courage and walked in through the door. That single incident changed his whole life and gave India it's best ornithologist. Millard identified the sparrow as the Yellow-throated Sparrow, and showed him the Society's splendid collection of stuffed birds. Salim became interested in birds through this incident and wanted to pursue his career in ornithology. Since there were no jobs connected with natural history in 1919, Salim Ali and his wife Tehmina went off to Burma to look after the family mining and timber business. It was a rewarding experience for the naturalist as there were endless opportunities to explore the forests of Burma. The business did not flourish and he had to return to India. After returning to India, Salim Ali tried to get a job as an ornithologist with the Zoological Survey of India but since he did not have an M. Sc. or Ph.D., having abandoned his studies after a B.Sc. in zoology from St. Xavier's College, the post went to someone else. Salim Ali decided to study further after he managed to get a job of a guide lecturer at the newly opened natural history section of the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. He realized that it was important to pursue further studies if he wanted to take up ornithology as a profession rather than a part time interest. He went on study leave to Germany where he trained under Professor Stresemann, an acknowledged ornithologist, whom Salim Ali considered his Guru. Despite his studies at the prestigious university abroad Salim Ali was unable to get job. It was then that he hit upon an idea. The princely States: There were vast tracts of India, particularly the princely states whose avifauna had been little explored or studied. He offered to conduct regional ornithological surveys of these areas for the BNHS. He would give his services gratis provided the Society and the state authorities would fund the camping and transport. The princely states were only too eager to have their birds recorded for posterity, and they readily agreed to this novel idea. From there onwards he began his life as a nomad. J.C. Daniel: Born in Nagercoil and brought up in Trivandrum, Jivanayakam Cyril Daniel's tryst with nature began as a young boy. His childhood memories include jackals howling into the night, to the accompaniment of the haunting calls of Hawk Owls. His mother's empathy towards animals and his father's scholarly pursuits encouraged him to frequent Trivandrum's excellent public library, where books on African wildlife whetted his budding curiosity for the natural world. Influenced early in his life by Dr. Sálim Ali, "J.C.", as he is universally known, has been a part of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) for four decades. When he retired as its Director in 1991 he was promptly elected an Honorary Member and is now its Honorary Secretary. (from an interview for Sanctuary magazine
from http://www.worldbirdnames.org/reactions-r-cheke.html: As any well-read Holarctic birder knows, some names for widespread species differ unrecognizably on either side of the Atlantic, North American 'loons', 'jaegers' or 'murres' sounding foreign to Britons used to 'divers', 'skuas' and 'guillemots'. Traditions diverge when populations are isolated, and since we are nowadays enjoined to respect multicultural diversity, should we not also respect the variation within the 'English' cultural radiation? English is widely used in India and, responding in 2002 to the IOC initiative, the Bombay Natural History Society published a list of English names in the Indian tradition ( Ranjit Manakadan & Asheesh Pittie (2002) Standardised English and scientific names of the birds of the Indian Subcontinent. Newsl. for Birdwatchers 42 (3): i-viii, 1-36): Who does the standardized, worldwide list of English bird names benefit? ... It is definitely useful to the globetrotting birdwatcher ... [who] ... prefers books with standardized bird names ... but ... there is already a fine system in place to do just that, the Linnaean system of nomenclature. Change that benefits everybody is good. But change for the sake of change is another thing. The globalization of bird names impoverishes the unique culture, history, character and literature, the very fabric, of a nation's ornithological history. Indian English names of birds are as cherished by us as are American English names by the Americans and UK English names by the British. Despite the appeal to local tradition, the Indian list had already lost such gems as Pharoah's Chicken ( Neophron percnopterus , Egyptian Vulture) and Paddy Bird ( Ardeola grayi , Indian Pond Heron) that graced Salim Ali's Book of Indian Birds (1941). Although published well before the end-2004 deadline, the BNHS list was apparently ignored by the IOC project (whose Oriental subcommittee contained no Asians), and escapes mention in their meagre bibliography. The Indians tried, and failed, to get their voice heard. Mentioned in the Introduction, and echoed by the Indians, is the major objection that nomenclatural uniformity is supposed to be vested in the scientific ('Latin') names as codified by Linnaeus in 1758. So why replicate this in English? Given that English is now the international scientific lingua franca , there is a case for a set of names recognized by all English-speaking ornithologists, not least because they are often in practice more stable than the Latin ones, but that is no reason to abolish local variations. However, the IOC list is clearly designed to do just that, as the authors urge birders, editors, government agencies and conservation organizations to comply with the 'International English Name'. Authors are already under pressure to conform, as I know from personal experience.